Original investigationA Low Tube Voltage Technique Reduces the Radiation Dose at Retrospective ECG-gated Cardiac Computed Tomography for Anatomical and Functional Analyses
Section snippets
Materials and methods
This study was approved by our institutional review board; informed consent was obtained from all patients who underwent cardiac CT.
Results
The patient characteristics are summarized in Table 1. There was no significant difference in the age (P = .71), gender distribution (P = .64), body weight (P = .45), BMI (P = .39), and heart rate (P = .08) between the two protocol groups.
Discussion
Retrospective ECG-gated cardiac CT has emerged as a useful noninvasive diagnostic imaging modality not only for the assessment of coronary arteries but also of cardiac motion in three dimensions 2, 17. However, the risk of cancer associated with ionizing radiation in patients undergoing repeat CT studies has raised serious concerns (18) and a low-tube-voltage technique may minimize this disadvantage.
Reducing the tube voltage offers the advantages of higher vascular enhancement at a reduced
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