Head CT normal dose vs low-dose

[Ted365]

Hi all,

 

I have a patient who needs to take a very fine CT (1mm slices) prior to surgery for the manufacture of a cranial implant.

The equivalent dose for this scan is approximately 10mSv.

If the patient were to have this scan done at low dose - 30 to 50% of the regular dose, would the CT scan be acceptably accurate for the implant maufacture?

I have found materials detailing how detection rate of tumors and other malignancies in soft tissues using low-dose is similar to that of normal does.

In this case, since we are interested in just the shape, the contour of the bone, is low-dose a good solution?

 

Thank you very much,

Ted

[Dr. Mike]

If you are only interested in bone, the lower dose is probably fine. Make sure you get sequences with soft tissue reconstruction algorithm in addition to the standard bone algorithm. Edge enhancement with the bone algorithm causes speckling, which can make bone segmentation more difficult. See my blog article on selecting a good scan for 3D printing below for details. Look at the section on reconstruction kernel.

 

 

[Ted365]

Thank you, Dr Mike I'll look into that.