Strategies to reduce radiation dose in cardiac PET/CT

Abstract

Abstract Background Our aim was to investigate CT dose reduction strategies on a hybrid PET/CT scanner for cardiac applications. Materials Image quality and dose estimation of different CT scanning protocols for CT coronary angiography (CTCA), and CT-based attenuation correction for PET imaging were investigated. Fifteen patients underwent CTCA, perfusion PET imaging at rest and under stress, and FDG PET for myocardial viability. These patients were divided into three groups based on the CTCA technique performed: retrospectively gated helical (RGH), ECG tube current modulation (ETCM), and prospective gated axial (PGA) acquisitions. All emission images were corrected for photon attenuation using CT images obtained by default setting and an ultra-low dose CT (ULDCT) scan. Results Radiation dose in RGH technique was 22.2±4.0 mSv. It was reduced to 10.95±0.82 and 4.13±0.31 mSv using ETCM and PGA techniques, respectively. Radiation dose in CT transmission scan was reduced by 96.5% (from 4.53±0.5 to 0.16±0.01 mSv) when applying ULDCT as compared to the default CT. No significant difference in terms of image quality was found among various protocols. Conclusion The proposed CT scanning strategies, i.e. ETCM or PGA for CTCA and ULDCT for PET attenuation correction, could reduce radiation dose up to 47% without degrading imaging quality in an integrated cardiac PET/CT coronary artery examination.