Prospective CT angiography can reduce radiation dose below that of retrospective CT angiography with dose modulation, while maintaining image quality and the ability to assess luminal obstructions in patients with heart rates of less than 75 beats per minute.

No abstract

Prospective ECG-triggered coronary 64-MDCT has the potential to reduce radiation exposure while maintaining the diagnostic performance of retrospective ECG-gated coronary 64-MDCT.

Coronary artery enhancement has a significant impact on 64-MDCT densitometry measurements of coronary artery plaques, especially of soft plaques. A large plaque size, densitometry performed not near the arterial lumen but at the center of the plaque, intracoronary enhancement of 250 H, and a low heart rate increase the accuracy of plaque densitometry.

The accuracy of the raw-data-based Z values was higher than that of image-based Z values in the tissue-equivalent phantom. The accuracy of Z values in the contrast medium was in good agreement within the maximum SD found in the iodine concentration range of clinical dynamic CT imaging. Moreover, the optimum monochromatic energy for human tissue and iodinated contrast medium was found to be 70 keV. Advances in knowledge: The accuracy of the Z values and monochromatic CT numbers of the contrast medium created by raw-data-based, dual-energy CT could be sufficient in clinical conditions.