Abstract
Computed tomography significantly contributes to the radiation exposure of the population of western countries. As compared to conventional radiography, an increase in dose by factors of up to 100 has been reported. With respect to spiral CT, the discussion focuses on a potential dose increase by bi- or triphasic examinations and the tendency to use smaller slice collimation. This chapter will give an outline how a conscientious choice of scanning protocols may dramatically reduce the radiation exposure to the patient (even with the standard Xenon detector) without having to sacrifice diagnostic accuracy. This can be achieved by individualizing mAs settings dependent on patient diameter, by choosing a pitch factor > 1.5, and by considering the influence of the raw data interpolation and image reconstruction on spatial resolution and image noise. Concerning the trade-off between spatial resolution and dose requirements, a little less sharpness will in many cases mean a lot less dose to the patients’ algorithms.
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Prokop, M., Schaefer-Prokop, C.M., Galanski, M. (1998). Dose Reduction Versus Image Quality in Spiral CT: How Far Down Can We Go in Clinical Practice?. In: Krestin, G.P., Glazer, G.M. (eds) Advances in CT IV. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-72195-3_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-72195-3_3
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