PurposeOur purpose was to evaluate image delineation ability of contrast-enhanced post-mortem computed tomography (CEPMCT) using cardiopulmonary resuscitation technique of chest compression, named “resuscitation CEPMCT”.Materials and methodsNon-traumatically-deceased 15 subjects (7 men; 8 women) aged 19–87 years (mean 61 years) underwent resuscitation CEPMCT. The contrast-enhanced technique, while injecting 100 ml of contrast media from the right cubital vein at a rate of 1 ml/s, chest compression was performed for 2 minutes at a rate of 100 times/min (a total of 200 times). CT attenuation values (Hounsfield Unit: HU) were measured in 8 target vessels: 1) pulmonary artery, 2) coronary artery, 3) ascending aorta, 4) abdominal aorta, 5) celiac trunk, 6) common iliac artery, 7) superior vena cava, and 8) inferior vena cava. One-sided Student’s t-test was performed to assess whether measured values were higher than 140 HU by setting p-value at 0.05.ResultsMeasured CT values in the 8 vessels were 1) pulmonary artery: 325 ± 140 HU, 2) coronary artery: 240 ± 73 HU, 3) ascending aorta: 321 ± 127 HU, 4) abdominal aorta: 286 ± 96 HU, 5) celiac trunk: 233 ± 62 HU, 6) common iliac artery: 260 ± 114 HU, 7) superior vena cava: 422 ± 187 HU, and 8) inferior vena cava: 301 ± 142 HU, showing significantly higher values than the threshold value of 140 HU. Resuscitation CEPMCT detected one case of pulmonary arterial thromboemboli death.ConclusionResuscitation CEPMCT using chest compression immediately after death has the possibility of detecting thromboembolus in major vessels, despite the simplicity of the technique.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/2193-1801-2-663) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

By using the digital phantom, we focused on only collection angle and collection orbit condition, and focused on two indexes of the uniformity and the spatial resolution and were able to show a quantitative index.