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Identifying Coronary Artery Calcification on Non-gated Computed Tomography Scans
Published on: August 28, 2018
Coronary CT angiography with single-source and dual-source CT: comparison of image quality and radiation dose between
Akmal Sabarudin1, Zhonghua Sun, Ahmad Khairuddin Md Yusof
1Discipline of Medical Imaging, Department of Imaging and Applied Physics, Curtin University, GPO Box U1987, Perth, Western Australia 6845, Australia; Diagnostic Imaging & Radiotherapy Programme, Faculty of Health Sciences, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 50300 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Background:
This study is conducted to investigate and compare image quality and radiation dose between prospective ECG-triggered and retrospective ECG-gated coronary CT angiography (CCTA) with the use of single-source CT (SSCT) and dual-source CT (DSCT).
Methods:
A total of 209 patients who underwent CCTA with suspected coronary artery disease scanned with SSCT (n=95) and DSCT (n=114) scanners using prospective ECG-triggered and retrospective ECG-gated protocols were recruited from two institutions. The image was assessed by two experienced observers, while quantitative assessment was performed by measuring the image noise, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR). Effective dose was calculated using the latest published conversion coefficient factor.
Results:
A total of 2087 out of 2880 coronary artery segments were assessable, with 98.0% classified as of sufficient and 2.0% as of insufficient image quality for clinical diagnosis. There was no significant difference in overall image quality between prospective ECG-triggered and retrospective gated protocols, whether it was performed with DSCT or SSCT scanners. Prospective ECG-triggered protocol was compared in terms of radiation dose calculation between DSCT (6.5 ± 2.9 mSv) and SSCT (6.2 ± 1.0 mSv) scanners and no significant difference was noted (p=0.99). However, the effective dose was significantly lower with DSCT (18.2 ± 8.3 mSv) than with SSCT (28.3 ± 7.0 mSv) in the retrospective gated protocol.
Conclusions:
Prospective ECG-triggered CCTA reduces radiation dose significantly compared to retrospective ECG-gated CCTA, while maintaining good image quality.
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