Assessment of phase based dose modulation for improved dose efficiency in cardiac CT on an anthropomorphic motion phantom

Adam Budde; Roy Nilsen; Brian Nett

doi:10.1117/12.2043759

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19 March 2014 Assessment of phase based dose modulation for improved dose efficiency in cardiac CT on an anthropomorphic motion phantom

Adam Budde, Roy Nilsen, Brian Nett

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Proceedings Volume 9033, Medical Imaging 2014: Physics of Medical Imaging; 90332D (2014) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2043759
Event: SPIE Medical Imaging, 2014, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

State of the art automatic exposure control modulates the tube current across view angle and Z based on patient anatomy for use in axial full scan reconstructions. Cardiac CT, however, uses a fundamentally different image reconstruction that applies a temporal weighting to reduce motion artifacts. This paper describes a phase based mA modulation that goes beyond axial and ECG modulation; it uses knowledge of the temporal view weighting applied within the reconstruction algorithm to improve dose efficiency in cardiac CT scanning. Using physical phantoms and synthetic noise emulation, we measure how knowledge of sinogram temporal weighting and the prescribed cardiac phase can be used to improve dose efficiency. First, we validated that a synthetic CT noise emulation method produced realistic image noise. Next, we used the CT noise emulation method to simulate mA modulation on scans of a physical anthropomorphic phantom where a motion profile corresponding to a heart rate of 60 beats per minute was used. The CT noise emulation method matched noise to lower dose scans across the image within 1.5% relative error. Using this noise emulation method to simulate modulating the mA while keeping the total dose constant, the image variance was reduced by an average of 11.9% on a scan with 50 msec padding, demonstrating improved dose efficiency. Radiation dose reduction in cardiac CT can be achieved while maintaining the same level of image noise through phase based dose modulation that incorporates knowledge of the cardiac reconstruction algorithm.

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Adam Budde, Roy Nilsen, and Brian Nett "Assessment of phase based dose modulation for improved dose efficiency in cardiac CT on an anthropomorphic motion phantom", Proc. SPIE 9033, Medical Imaging 2014: Physics of Medical Imaging, 90332D (19 March 2014); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2043759

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