CT Flashcards
CT mA, kVp and focal spot vs Xray
Main diff
HIGHER mA in CT
CT kVp 80-120 Xray 50-120
focal spot CT 0.6-1.2 Xray 1.0-1.2
CT filters
material
copper or aluminum
Bow tie filters
purpose? material?
compensate for uneven attenuation of beam by patient (head)
low Z materials
heel effect in CT
minimized - anode cathode axis positioned perpendicular to imaging plane
CT scatted reduction
collimator?
septa?
collimator at both the xray tube and at detector
“defines section thickness on a single slice”
anti-scatter septa (like grid)
iterative reconstruction
effect on dose
allows more noise
(less dose same quality)
Modern vs dino CT detectorys
scintillator vs Gas-filled
what determines number of slices obtained simultaneously?
number of detectors in Z direction
“isotropic resolution”
MDCT can do non-axial recons without stretching pixels
minimum slice thickness determined by?
detector element aperture width
kVp and mA adjustments in modern CT
using scout before acquisition
on the fly adjustment with continuous modulation
“ray”
total xray attenuation along a particular line from focal point to single detector
“projection”
all rays at a given tube position/angle of xray tube
‘kind’ of xrays used in CT?
highly filtered, high kV
Matrix size in CT?
bits?
shades of gray?
512 x 512
12 bits
2 ^12 = 4096 shades of gray
pixel size = ?
better res = ?
FOV/MATRIX
better res = larger matrix
Pitch equation
Table movement / beam width
relationship bt HU and Xray attenuation
increase in 10HU = 1% increase in x-ray attenuation
effect of keV on HU
low keV –> higher HU
more attenuation thanks to k edge
contrast HU at 140 kV = 100HU
at 80 kV = 400HU
filtration and HU’s
increases average energy (beam hardened)
higher energy beam –> lower HU’s
phenomenon of ‘cupping’ with lower HU in center as beam is filtered by body
Window ‘level’ =
‘width’
level = middle of grayscale, want it at attenuation of thing youre lookin at
width = width… want it narrow if things look same (gray and white matter)
what HU is black if level set at 100 and window 300
less than -50
Typical presets (W,L)
Brain
W 80, L+40
Typical presets (W,L)
Lung
W 1500, L-400
Typical presets (W,L)
Abdomen
W 400, L +50
Typical presets (W,L)
Bone W 1600, L +500
Process of making an image in CT
starts with detector…
Raw data
I
processing (filter back or iterative)
I
Mathematic filter ‘Kernel’ applied
I
Ready to read/store