[Contrast enhancement technique in brain 3D-CTA studies: optimizing the amount of contrast medium according to scan...

In three-dimensional CT angiography (3D-CTA), good reproducibility can be obtained by maintaining the maximum CT numbers (HU) at a specified level. However, the correlation between the scan time and the injection time showed that the maximum CT numbers increased and varied due to the additional contrast enhancement effect from recirculation of the injected contrast medium for longer injection times when the dose of iodinated contrast medium per unit time (mgI/s) was maintained at a specified level based on the time-density curve (TDC) of the phantom. The amount of contrast medium employed at our hospital has been optimized based on an iodinated contrast medium dose per unit time providing a contrast enhancement effect of 300 HU in the middle cerebral artery. Using this standard, a TDC phantom was employed to obtain an iodinated contrast medium dose per unit time, permitting equivalent maximum CT values (used as standard values) to be obtained by changing the injection time. A contrast-enhancement technique that accounts for the variation in the scan time was evaluated. Strong correlations were observed between the scan time and the injection time (R2=0.969) and between the injection time and the dose of iodinated contrast medium per unit body weight (R2=0.994). We conclude that adjusting the dose of iodinated contrast medium per unit body weight per unit time according to the scan time permits optimization of the contrast-enhancement technique.