Radiation dose efficiency of multi-energy CT for dual-contrast imaging.

Radiation dose efficiency of multi-energy CT for dual-contrast imaging. Phys Med Biol. 2019 Nov 08;: Authors: Ren L, Rajendran K, McCollough CH, Yu L Abstract Compared to traditional multi-scan single-energy CT (SECT), one potential advantage of single-scan multi-energy CT (MECT) proposed for simultaneous imaging of multiple contrast agents is the radiation dose reduction. This phantom study aims to rigorously evaluate whether the radiation dose can truly be reduced in a single-scan MECT protocol (MECT_1s) in biphasic liver imaging with iodine and gadolinium, and small bowel imaging with iodine and bismuth, compared to traditional two-scan SECT protocols (SECT_2s). For MECT_1s, mixed iodine/gadolinium samples were prepared corresponding to late arterial/portal-venous phase for biphasic liver imaging. Mixed iodine/bismuth samples were prepared representing the arterial/enteric enhancement for small bowel imaging. For SECT_2s, separate contrast samples were prepared to mimic separate scans in arterial/venous phase and arterial/enteric enhancement. Samples were placed in a 35-cm wide water phantom and scanned by a research whole-body photon-counting-detector-CT (PCD-CT) system ("chess" mode). MECT images were acquired with optimized kV/threshold settings for each imaging task, and SECT images were acquired at 120 kV. Total CTDIvol was matched for the two protocols. Image-based three-material decomposition was employed in MECT_1s to dete...
Source: Physics in Medicine and Biology - Category: Physics Authors: Tags: Phys Med Biol Source Type: research