Low tube voltage and low contrast material volume cerebral CT angiography

• Published in: European radiology 2014-07, Vol.24 (7), p.1677-1685
• Main Authors: Luo, Song, Zhang, Long Jiang, Meinel, Felix G., Zhou, Chang Sheng, Qi, Li, McQuiston, Andrew D., Schoepf, U. Joseph, Lu, Guang Ming
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Accuracy; Adult; Aged; Aneurysms; Carotid arteries; Cerebral Angiography - methods; Contrast agents; Contrast Media - administration & dosage; Diagnostic Radiology; Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; Female; Follow-Up Studies; Humans; Imaging; Injections, Intravenous; Internal Medicine; Interventional Radiology; Intracranial Aneurysm - diagnostic imaging; Iodine; Iohexol - administration & dosage; Iohexol - analogs & derivatives; Male; Medical imaging; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Middle Aged; Neuro; Neuroradiology; Radiation; Radiation Dosage; Radiology; Reproducibility of Results; Retrospective Studies; Signal to noise ratio; Tomography; Tomography, X-Ray Computed - methods; Ultrasound; Veins & arteries
• ISSN: 0938-7994; 1432-1084
• DOI: 10.1007/s00330-014-3184-z

Objectives To evaluate the image quality, radiation dose and diagnostic accuracy of low kVp and low contrast material volume cerebral CT angiography (CTA) in intracranial aneurysm detection. Methods One hundred twenty patients were randomly divided into three groups ( n  = 40 for each): Group A, 70 ml iodinated contrast agent/120 kVp; group B, 30 ml/100 kVp; group C, 30 ml/80 kVp. The CT numbers, noise, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) were measured in the internal carotid artery (ICA) and middle cerebral artery (MCA). Subjective image quality was evaluated. For patients undergoing DSA, diagnostic accuracy of CTA was calculated with DSA as reference standard and compared. Results CT numbers of ICA and MCA were higher in groups B and C than in group A ( P