Evaluación de la Calidad de Imagen de la Reconstrucción Iterativa con Inteligencia Artificial para Angiografía por TC...

To investigate the feasibility and image quality of artificial intelligence iterative reconstruction (AIIR) for computed tomography angiography (CTA) of the bronchial artery (BA) with a reduced radiation dose and contrast agent dosage.

A total of 110 hemoptysis patients were prospectively enrolled for bronchial artery CTA (BA-CTA) and were randomly divided into 2 groups. Routine-dose group (group A, n=55) used a routine CTA protocol (tube voltage: 120 kVp; contrast dosage: 80 mL) with hybrid iterative reconstruction, while the low-dose group (group B, n=55) used the low-dose protocol (tube voltage: 100 kVp; contrast dosage: 50 mL) with AIIR. Attenuation values, noise, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) were measured for objective analysis. Subjective image quality was rated by 2 blinded radiologists using 5-point scales.

No significant differences in demographic characteristics were observed between the 2 groups (all P>0.05). The radiation dose in group B was reduced by 73.8%, respectively, compared with group A. The mediastinal segment of BA was shown in both group images, while the hilar segment of BA was higher in group B than in group A (P<0.05). The mean subjective scores between the 2 groups showed no significant difference (all P>0.05), while SNR and CNR of group B were higher than those of group A (all P<0.0001).

The simultaneous reconstruction of BA-CTA images using the AIIR algorithm with reduced tube voltage and contrast agent dosage not only substantially reduces the radiation dose of preoperative BA-CTA for BAE but also achieves better image quality than routine-dose images.