Evaluation of an adaptive detector collimation for prospectively ECG-triggered coronary CT angiography with third-generation dual-source CT.

Objectives: To investigate the impact of an adaptive detector collimation on the dose parameters and accurateness of scan length adaption at prospectively ECG-triggered sequential cardiac CT with a wide-detector third-generation dual-source CT.

Methods: Ideal scan lengths for human hearts were retrospectively derived from 103 triple-rule-out examinations. These measures were entered into the new scanner operated in prospectively ECG-triggered sequential cardiac scan mode with three different detector settings: (1) adaptive collimation, (2) fixed 64 × 0.6-mm collimation, and (3) fixed 96 × 0.6-mm collimation. Differences in effective scan length and deviation from the ideal scan length and dose parameters (CTDIvol, DLP) were documented.

Results: The ideal cardiac scan length could be matched by the adaptive collimation in every case while the mean scanned length was longer by 15.4% with the 64 × 0.6 mm and by 27.2% with the fixed 96 × 0.6-mm collimation. While the DLP was almost identical between the adaptive and the 64 × 0.6-mm collimation (83 vs. 89 mGycm at 120 kV), it was 62.7% higher with the 96 × 0.6-mm collimation (135 mGycm), p < 0.001.

Conclusion: The adaptive detector collimation for prospectively ECG-triggered sequential acquisition allows for adjusting the scan length as accurate as this can only be achieved with a spiral acquisition. This technique allows keeping patient exposure low where patient dose would significantly increase with the traditional step-and-shoot mode.

Key Points: • Adaptive detector collimation allows keeping patient exposure low in cardiac CT. • With novel detectors the desired scan length can be accurately matched. • Differences in detector settings may cause 62.7% of excessive dose.