The technical characteristics of matched filtering in digital subtraction angiography.

The technical characteristics of a new digital fluorographic image processing method called matched filtering are presented. This technique, a type of extensive temporal integration, takes a weighted sum of images acquired during passage of a contrast bolus through some area of interest. The weight of each image is governed by the magnitude of the contrast bolus in that image. An essential requirement of the matched filter is that its integral be zero. It is shown for equal exposure rates and typical bolus characteristics that matched filtering provides a factor of two higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) than conventional methods for bolus transit times of 10 s or higher. Equilvalently, matched filtering can yield images with quality comparable to conventional digital subtraction angiography (DSA) at a factor of four less patient exposure. The SNR obtained with matched filtering is shown to be within 30% of an ideal bound. Comparisons of matched filtering to standard recursive methods and simple integration are made. Experimental canine studies are presented which compare matched filtering with conventional DSA.