Original articleComparison of Standard-Dose vs Low-Dose Attenuation Correction CT on Image Quality and Positron Emission Tomographic Attenuation Correction
Section snippets
Patient Population
This study was approved by our institution’s Human Research Committee and complied with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. The study was performed as a retrospective review of PET/CT performed before and after a change in clinical protocols for PET/CT at our institution. The total study population consisted of 78 consecutive patients who were referred for combined FDG-PET/CT. The first group of patients (n = 43) underwent PET/CT in which the CTAC dose was of diagnostic
Results
The DLP of CTAC was used as a measure of patient dose [4]. Standard-dose CTAC had a mean DLP of 374.2 mGy cm (range, 295-662 mGy cm; SD = 74.1 mGy cm), and reduced-dose CTAC had a mean DLP of 152.1 mGy cm (range, 107-461 mGy cm; SD = 60.8 mGy cm). Reduced-dose CTAC demonstrated a mean 60.6% reduction in the DLP compared with standard-dose CTAC (P < .0001; Table 3).
Low-dose CTAC demonstrated statistically significant poorer scores for anatomic detail and noise at each of the 4 anatomic levels
Discussion
According to a 1993 report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, medical sources account for approximately 80% of manmade radiation exposure [5]. Per a report of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements, approximately 15% of the total average effective dose equivalent in the US population is from medical sources [6]. Additionally, effective radiation doses to patients from computed tomographic examinations have increased compared
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