Physics And Instrumentation Flashcards
Measurement of the attenuation that occurs along each path through the patient from X-ray tube to detector
Data Acquisition
Angle of the tube and detectors in relationship to the patient position during scout acquisition is
Azimuth
Smaller focal spots improve the geometric efficiency of the X-ray beam, leading to a
Greater spatial resolution
Spatial resolution
Ability of a CT imaging system to display fine details separately (lp/cm)
Amount of X-ray photons passing through a specified area
Photon fluence
Rate at which the photon fluence passes through a unit area over unit time
Photon flux
Describes the calculated mAs value per acquired slice.
Main controlling factor is table speed.
Effective mAs
Effective mAs = mAs/
Pitch
Describes the spacing between two adjacent CT images.
Measured as the distance between the center of one section and the center of the next adjacent section.
Section interval
Those acquired with equal section thickness and interval
Contiguous images
Those acquired with an interval greater than the section width
Noncontiguous images
Reconstructed with a section interval that is less than the section width
Overlapping images
Describes the relationship between collimation and table movement during scanning
Pitch
Original definition of pitch may now be referred to as
Detector pitch
Original definition of pitch
SSCT
Pitch = table feed per rotation/
Section width
New adaptation of pitch in MSCT is termed beam pitch. Formula:
Beam pitch =
table feed per rotation/
Total collimation
Total collimation = number of sections x section width
The reduction of intensity of a radiation beam as it passes through a substance
Attenuation
Desired qualities of a CT detector:
High efficiency
Rapid signal decay
High dynamic range
Convert X-ray energy directly into an electrical signal
Gas ionization detectors
Convert X-ray energy first into light energy, which just then be converted into electrical signal
Solid-state scintillation crystal detectors
All modern MSCT systems utilize this type
Determines the width of the reconstructed section
Detector collimation
Beam collimation no longer controls section width
Refers to the number, length, and organization of the individual detector elements in an MSCT system
Detector configuration
3 general formats of MSCT detector configuration:
Uniform matrix-array: utilizes multiple detectors in the longitudinal direction, each the same length. (Same size collimation)
Adaptive-array: thinnest widths at the center, surrounded by detectors of incrementally increasing widths. (5,2.5,1,1,2.5,5)
Hybrid-array: 2 detector sizes. Narrower midline and wider outside.
Electronic combination of signal from adjacent detectors to form a reconstructed slice that is thicker than the individual detector width
Binning
Electronic components responsible for measuring the transmitted x-radiation absorbed by the detectors
DAS
Data acquisition system
The CPU is capable of performing multiple tasks simultaneously, a function called
Parallel processing
An additional feature of CT computers systems that further improves the speed and efficiency with which it can perform multilingual simultaneous functions
Pipelining
Primary data processing component of the CT system:
Is a separate computer with its own CPU
Responsible for receiving scan data from the host computer, performing all of the major processing of the CT image, and returning the reconstructed image to the storage memory of the host computer
Array processor
Portion of the X-ray beam transmitted through the patient and incident upon a single detector
Ray
The measurement of transmitted radiation made by an individual detector
Ray sun
Ability of an object to attenuate the X-ray beam is assigned a value termed
Linear attenuation coefficient