Liver Attenuation Assessment in Reduced Radiation Chest Computed Tomography

This study aimed to evaluate the reliability of liver and spleen Hounsfield units (HU) measurements in reduced radiation computed tomography (RRCT) of the chest within the sub-millisievert range. Methods We performed a prospective, institutional review board–approved study of accrued patients who underwent unenhanced normal-dose chest CT (NDCT) and with an average radiation dose of less than 5% of NDCT. In-house artificial intelligence–based denoising methods produced 2 denoised RRCT (dRRCT) series. Hepatic and splenic attenuations were measured on all 4 series: NDCT, RRCT, dRRCT1, and dRRCT2. Statistical analyses assessed the differences between the HU measurements of the liver and spleen in RRCTs and NDCT. As a test case, we assessed the performance of RRCTs for fatty liver detection, considering NDCT to be the reference standard. Results Wilcoxon test compared liver and spleen attenuation in the 72 patients included in our cohort. The liver attenuation in NDCT (median, 59.38 HU; interquartile range, 55.00–66.06 HU) was significantly different from the attenuation in RRCT, dRRCT1, and dRRCT2 (median, 63.63, 42.00, and 33.67 HU; interquartile range, 56.19–67.19, 37.33–45.83, and 30.33–38.50 HU, respectively), all with a P value
Source: Journal of Computer Assisted Tomography - Category: Radiology Tags: Abdominopelvic Imaging: Gastrointestinal Source Type: research