Automated Attenuation-Based Tube Potential Selection for Thoracoabdominal Computed Tomography Angiography

Abstract

Automated attenuation-based tube potential selection based on the attenuation profile of the topogram is feasible, provides a diagnostic image quality of body CTA, and reduces overall radiation dose by 25% as compared with a standard protocol with 120 kV.

Imaging the Parasinus Region with a Third-Generation Dual-Source CT and the Effect of Tin Filtration on Image Quality and Radiation Dose

“…13,14 The dose-reduction potential is highest in CT angiography because of the high vascular attenuation. [15][16][17][18] In nonenhanced CT, there is less potential of dose reduction by using low-kilovolt protocols, though the CT numbers of bone increase with decreasing kilovolt settings and the higher image noise in low kilovolts is a limiting factor. We demonstrated that the Sn100-kV protocol provided superior image quality compared with 70-to 90-kV protocols at equivalent dose levels.…”

Carotid CTA: Radiation Exposure and Image Quality with the Use of Attenuation-Based, Automated Kilovolt Selection

“…Iterative reconstruction has been demonstrated to compensate image noise in low-kilovolt scanning, maintaining high image quality. 24,37 Adding iterative reconstruction techniques to 100-kV scanning may further improve dose reduction by compensation of the higher image noise. We did not investigate this option because we wanted to exclude all confounding effects from the different techniques.…”

“…Such lowkilovolt protocols are used in cerebral perfusion CT in the evaluation of patients with stroke 16 and in pediatric CT. 17 In phantom 18 as well as in clinical studies, it has been demonstrated that this technique can also be used in chest and abdominal imaging in adults. [19][20][21][22][23][24] Lower tube voltage in CTA results in higher noise levels on one hand, but the attenuation of iodine is increased 25,26 on the other hand. This relationship must be considered when trying to reduce radiation exposure by use of low-kilovolt scanning and to maintain image quality.…”

“…This relationship must be considered when trying to reduce radiation exposure by use of low-kilovolt scanning and to maintain image quality. 24,27 The higher noise level in low-kilovolt scans will not be completely compensated by the higher iodine attenuation; therefore, additional adjustments of the tube current (milliampere setting) are necessary. Optimal manual adjustment of these parameters is complex, which prevented low-kilovolt scanning from general use until now.…”

Radiation dose and image quality with abdominal computed tomography with automated dose-optimized tube voltage selection

“…The principle of CARE kV was introduced by Winklehner et al 24 CARE kV is a fully automated feature integrated into the No statistically significant differences observed (P ! 0.05; independent-samples t-test).…”