Purpose: To investigate the effect of automatic spectral imaging protocol selection (ASIS) and adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction (ASIR) technology in reducing radiation and contrast dosage.
Methods: Sixty-four patients were randomly divided into two groups for abdominal computed tomography (CT): the experiment group with ASIS plus 50% ASIR and the control with 120 kVp voltage.
Results: The CT dose-index volume decreased by 23.68 and 23.57% and the dose-length product dropped by 25.59 and 18.45% in the arterial and portal venous phases, respectively, in the experiment than control group. The contrast dose was reduced by 16.86% in the experiment group. In the 55 keV + 50% ASIR group, the arterial contrast-to-noise ratio and scores were significantly (P < 0.05) higher than in the control group in the arterial phase while the portal contrast-to-noise ratio and scores were not significantly different between the two groups (P > 0.05).
Conclusion: The ASIS technique plus 50% ASIR can enhance image quality of the abdominal structures while decreasing the radiation and contrast dosage compared with the conventional scan mode.
Keywords: Angiography; Iterative reconstruction; Monochromatic image; Radiation dose; Spectral computed tomography.