Spectral photon-counting CT in cardiovascular imaging

Veit Sandfort; Mats Persson; Amir Pourmorteza; Peter B Noël; Dominik Fleischmann; Martin J Willemink

doi:10.1016/j.jcct.2020.12.005

Spectral photon-counting CT in cardiovascular imaging

J Cardiovasc Comput Tomogr. 2021 May-Jun;15(3):218-225. doi: 10.1016/j.jcct.2020.12.005. Epub 2020 Dec 21.

Authors

Veit Sandfort¹, Mats Persson², Amir Pourmorteza³, Peter B Noël⁴, Dominik Fleischmann¹, Martin J Willemink⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Radiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA.
² Department of Physics, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.
³ Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences, Winship Cancer Institute, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA; Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA; Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, Atlanta, GA, USA.
⁴ Department of Radiology, Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
⁵ Department of Radiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA. Electronic address: willemink@stanford.edu.

PMID: 33358186
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcct.2020.12.005

Abstract

Photon-counting computed tomography (PCCT) is an emerging technology promising to substantially improve cardiovascular imaging. Recent engineering and manufacturing advances by several vendors are expected to imminently launch this new technology into clinical reality. Photon-counting detectors (PCDs) have multiple potential advantages over conventional energy integrating detectors (EIDs) such as the absence of electronic noise, multi-energy capability, and increased spatial resolution. These developments will have different timescales for implementation and will affect different clinical scopes. We describe the technical aspects of PCCT, explain the current developments, and finally discuss potential advantages of PCCT in cardiovascular imaging.

Keywords: Computed tomography; Photon-counting computed tomography; Spectral imaging.

Publication types

Review

MeSH terms

Cardiovascular Diseases / diagnostic imaging*
Humans
Photons*
Predictive Value of Tests
Radiographic Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted
Tomography Scanners, X-Ray Computed
Tomography, X-Ray Computed* / instrumentation