Comparison of Full- and Half-Dose Image Reconstruction With Filtered Back Projection or Sinogram-Affirmed Iterative...

The purpose of this study is to prospectively compare the image quality of and confidence in the presence of a lesion on CT urography images acquired using filtered back projection (FBP) with 100% and 50% radiation doses with those for images simultaneously acquired using sinogram-affirmed iterative reconstruction with strength 3 (SAFIRE) with 50% and 25% radiation doses for patients with a high risk for urothelial carcinomas.

A total of 150 patients randomly underwent CT urography examinations performed using a dual-source single-energy scanner. After the radiation output of each tube was adjusted, datasets at three radiation dose levels were reconstructed using FBP and SAFIRE. Seven radiologists subjectively assessed image quality and confidence in the presence of a lesion for a total of 1200 datasets. Nonparametric methods for cluster data were used to estimate AUC values for variance methods on the basis of a noninferiority margin of 0.05.

The mean AUC value for image quality in SAFIRE with a 25% radiation dose was significantly lower than that of FBP with 100% radiation dose (p < 0.05 for all). The mean AUC values for the presence of a lesion were 0.907 and 0.894 for FBP, respectively, at 100% and 50% radiation doses, respectively, and 0.900 and 0.799 for SAFIRE at 50% and 25% radiation doses, respectively. However, the image quality of images acquired with SAFIRE at a 25% radiation dose was significantly inferior to that of images acquired with FBP at a 100% radiation dose.

Regardless of the experience of the radiologist, CT urography images acquired with FBP and SAFIRE with a 50% radiation dose were noninferior to those acquired with FBP with a 100% radiation dose in terms of image quality and confidence in the presence of a lesion, whereas those acquired with SAFIRE with 25% radiation dose were inferior.