Potential radiation dose reduction in clinical photon-counting CT by the small pixel effect: ultra-high resolution (UHR) acquisitions reconstructed to standard resolution.

Objective: To assess the potential dose reduction achievable with clinical photon-counting CT (PCCT) in ultra-high resolution (UHR) mode compared to acquisitions using the standard resolution detector mode (Std).

Materials And Methods: With smaller detector pixels, PCCT achieves far higher spatial resolution than energy-integrating (EI) CT systems. The reconstruction of UHR acquisitions to the lower spatial resolution of conventional systems results in an image noise and radiation dose reduction.