%0 Journal Article
%A Stein, Thomas
%A Taron, Jana
%A Verloh, Niklas
%A Doppler, Michael
%A Rau, Alexander
%A Hagar, Muhammad Taha
%A Faby, Sebastian
%A Baltas, Dimos
%A Westermann, Dirk
%A Ayx, Isabelle
%A Schönberg, Stefan O
%A Nikolaou, Konstantin
%A Schlett, Christopher L
%A Bamberg, Fabian
%A Weiss, Jakob
%T Photon-counting computed tomography of coronary and peripheral artery stents: a phantom study.
%J Scientific reports
%V 13
%N 1
%@ 2045-2322
%C [London]
%I Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature
%M DKFZ-2023-01856
%P 14806
%D 2023
%X Accurate small vessel stent visualization using CT remains challenging. Photon-counting CT (PCD-CT) may help to overcome this issue. We systematically investigate PCD-CT impact on small vessel stent assessment compared to energy-integrating-CT (EID). 12 water-contrast agent filled stents (3.0-8 mm) were scanned with patient-equivalent phantom using clinical PCD-CT and EID-CT. Images were reconstructed using dedicated vascular kernels. Subjective image quality was evaluated by 5 radiologists independently (5-point Likert-scale; 5 = excellent). Objective image quality was evaluated by calculating multi-row intensity profiles including edge rise slope (ERS) and coefficient-of-variation (CV). Highest overall reading scores were found for PCD-CT-Bv56 (3.6[3.3-4.3]). In pairwise comparison, differences were significant for PCD-CT-Bv56 vs. EID-CT-Bv40 (p ≤ 0.04), for sharpness and blooming respectively (all p < 0.05). Highest diagnostic confidence was found for PCD-CT-Bv56 (p ≤ 0.2). ANOVA revealed a significant effect of kernel strength on ERS (p < 0.001). CV decreased with stronger PCD-CT kernels, reaching its lowest in PCD-CT-Bv56 and highest in EID-CT reconstruction (p ≤ 0.05). We are the first study to verify, by phantom setup adapted to real patient settings, PCD-CT with a sharp vascular kernel provides the most favorable image quality for small vessel stent imaging. PCD-CT may reduce the number of invasive coronary angiograms, however, more studies needed to apply our results in clinical practice.
%K Humans
%K Tomography, X-Ray Computed
%K Phantoms, Imaging
%K Coronary Angiography
%K Stents
%K Arteries
%F PUB:(DE-HGF)16
%9 Journal Article
%$ pmid:37684412
%2 pmc:PMC10491813
%R 10.1038/s41598-023-41854-3
%U https://inrepo02.dkfz.de/record/282730