Feasibility of high-pitch dual-source low-dose chest CT: Reduction of radiation and cardiac artifacts

초록

Purpose: To compare the radiation dose and image quality, focused mainly on cardiac pulsation artifact, between high-pitch low-dose chest computed tomography (HP-LDCT) and standard low-dose chest CT (LDCT). Patients and Methods: One hundred patients underwent HP-LDCT (50 patients) or LDCT (50 patients). Scan parameters were the same except for the pitch and gantry rotation time: 3.0 vs. 1.2 and 0.28 s vs. 0.5 s, respectively. Objective image noise at five regions and subjective image quality, such as noise, artifacts, cardiac pulsation artifacts, and overall diagnostic acceptability, were evaluated using a five-point scale. The significance level for all tests was set at P < 0.05. Results: The dose-length products (DLPs) with HP-LDCT and LDCT were 90.2 +/- 4.3 mGy cm and 103.1 +/- 6.4 mGy cm, respectively (P < 0.01). DLP of HP-LDCT showed a 13% reduction versus LDCT. Objective image noise was not significantly different. Cardiac pulsation artifacts showed a significant reduction on HP-LDCT (P < 0.01). Other subjective image quality parameters of HP-LDCT were similar to those of LDCT. The overall diagnostic acceptability of HP-LDCT was better than that of LDCT (P < 0.01). Conclusions: HP-LDCT showed a 13% mean radiation dose reduction with no deterioration in image quality due to cardiac pulsation artifacts. (C) 2016 Editions francaises de radiologie. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

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