To investigate dose reduction and comparability of standard dose CT vs Ultra low dose CT in evaluating pulmonary emphysema.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to investigate the extent of dose reduction and comparability of standard dose CT vs Ultra low dose CT in evaluating pulmonary emphysema.

METHODS: Forty-nine patients with emphysema were recruited from a tertiary referral respiratory clinic. Each patient had a non-contrast Standard Dose (SD) and Ultra Low Dose (ULD) thoracic CT. The images were reconstructed using contemporary iterative reconstruction with a standard lung kernel. Lung volumes and emphysema severity was calculated using a commercially available automated densitometry segmentation package. The effective dose was calculated for both CT protocols.

RESULTS: Automated densitometry calculated the total lung volume and percentage lung area of emphysema. The findings were highly comparable between ULD and SD protocols. A strong correlation was seen between ULD and SD images in measurement of total lung volume (R = 0.925, p < 0.001) and percentage lung involvement by densitometry (R = 0.940, p < 0.001). There is a 95% dose reduction with the ULD protocol, the mean effective dose is 0.12 ± 0.09 mSv versus 2.33 ± 1.54 mSv for the SD protocol.

CONCLUSIONS: ULD thoracic CT is a comparable protocol for the assessment of emphysema severity relative to standard dose CT. ULD CT is performed at a 95% dose reduction compared to SD CT.