[The Influence of the Presence or Absence of a Patient Transfer Slide Board on Radiation and Image Quality When Using an Automatic Tube Current Modulation with Bed Height Compensation].

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of patient transfer slide boards with automatic couch height positioning compensation (AHC) on image quality and radiation dose during computed tomography (CT) examinations.

Methods: The chest phantom for Kyoto Kagaku (Kyoto) Type PBU-SS 2 was performed helical scan using a Canon Medical Systems (Tochigi) 80-row CT Aquilion Prime SP/i Edition. Scan parameters were tube voltage: 120 kV, tube current: min 50 mA max 500 mA with AHC for noise index: 15, slice thickness: 5.0 mm, rotation time: 0.35 s/rotation, pitch factor: 0.813, reconstruction kernel: FC03. Filtered back projection was used for image reconstruction. We compared the image noise and volume computed tomography dose index (CTDI_vol) displayed on the console with and without the patient transfer slide boards by using or not using the AHC.

Results: When using the AHC, CTDI_vol was increased (p<0.05), and image noise was decreased (p<0.05). Without the AHC, there was no significant difference in CTDI_vol (p=0.11) and image noise (p=0.29).

Conclusion: The slide board utilized in this experiment did not have a notable impact on either image quality or exposure dose. Nonetheless, the use of the slide board was found to result in excessive exposure during CT scans that employed AHC.