Effects of Dual-Energy CT with Non-Linear Blending on Abdominal CT Angiography.
10.3348/kjr.2014.15.4.430
- Author:
Sulan LI
1
;
Chaoqin WANG
;
Xiaochen JIANG
;
Ge XU
Author Information
1. Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450052, China. sulanlisll@126.com
- Publication Type:Original Article
- Keywords:
Non-linear blending;
Linear blending;
Dual-energy CT;
Abdominal CT angiography
- MeSH:
Adult;
Aged;
Angiography/*methods;
Body Mass Index;
Female;
Humans;
Male;
Middle Aged;
Observer Variation;
Radiation Dosage;
Radiographic Image Enhancement/methods;
Radiographic Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted/*methods;
Radiography, Abdominal/*methods;
Signal-To-Noise Ratio;
Statistics, Nonparametric;
Tomography, X-Ray Computed/*methods
- From:Korean Journal of Radiology
2014;15(4):430-438
- CountryRepublic of Korea
- Language:English
-
Abstract:
OBJECTIVE: To determine whether non-linear blending technique for arterial-phase dual-energy abdominal CT angiography (CTA) could improve image quality compared to the linear blending technique and conventional 120 kVp imaging. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study included 118 patients who had accepted dual-energy abdominal CTA in the arterial phase. They were assigned to Sn140/80 kVp protocol (protocol A, n = 40) if body mass index (BMI) < 25 or Sn140/100 kVp protocol (protocol B, n = 41) if BMI > or = 25. Non-linear blending images and linear blending images with a weighting factor of 0.5 in each protocol were generated and compared with the conventional 120 kVp images (protocol C, n = 37). The abdominal vascular enhancements, image noise, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) and radiation dose were assessed. Statistical analysis was performed using one-way analysis of variance test, independent t test, Mann-Whitney U test, and Kruskal-Wallis test. RESULTS: Mean vascular attenuation, CNR, SNR and subjective image quality score for the non-linear blending images in each protocol were all higher compared to the corresponding linear blending images and 120 kVp images (p values ranging from < 0.001 to 0.007) except for when compared to non-linear blending images for protocol B and 120 kVp images in CNR and SNR. No significant differences were found in image noise among the three kinds of images and the same kind of images in different protocols, but the lowest radiation dose was shown in protocol A. CONCLUSION: Non-linear blending technique of dual-energy CT can improve the image quality of arterial-phase abdominal CTA, especially with the Sn140/80 kVp scanning.
