Evaluation of an iterative model-based CT reconstruction algorithm by intra-patient comparison of standard and ultra-low-dose examinations:

BackgroundThe explosive growth of computer tomography (CT) has led to a growing public health concern about patient and population radiation dose. A recently introduced technique for dose reduction, which can be combined with tube-current modulation, over-beam reduction, and organ-specific dose reduction, is iterative reconstruction (IR).PurposeTo evaluate the quality, at different radiation dose levels, of three reconstruction algorithms for diagnostics of patients with proven liver metastases under tumor follow-up.Material and MethodsA total of 40 thorax–abdomen–pelvis CT examinations acquired from 20 patients in a tumor follow-up were included. All patients were imaged using the standard-dose and a specific low-dose CT protocol. Reconstructed slices were generated by using three different reconstruction algorithms: a classical filtered back projection (FBP); a first-generation iterative noise-reduction algorithm (iDose4); and a next generation model-based IR algorithm (IMR).ResultsThe overall detection...