Coded scenes for fast system calibration in magnetic particle imaging

Magnetic nanoparticle (MNP) agents have a wide range of clinical application areas for both imaging and therapy. MNP distribution inside the body can be imaged using Magnetic Particle Imaging (MPI). For MPI image reconstruction with the system function matrix (SFM) approach, a calibration scan is necessary, in which a single MNP sample is placed and scanned inside the full field of view (FOV), which is a very time consuming task. In this study, we propose the use of coded scenes that include MNP samples at multiple positions inside the FOV, and reconstruct the SFM using compressed sensing techniques. We used simulations to analyze the effect of number of coded scenes on the image quality, and compare the results with standard sparse reconstruction using single MNP sample scan. The results show that with the proposed method, the required number of measurements is decreased substantially, enabling a fast system calibration procedure.