Current Tube Modulation Decreases Radiation
Friday April 24, 2009
Clinicians can dramatically reduce the radiation dose delivered to patients undergoing coronary CT angiography in a “triple rule-out” protocol by simply using tube current modulation, according to a study performed at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia. The study included 172 patients who were evaluated using coronary CT angiography without tube current modulation and 95 patients who were evaluated with tube current modulation. The effective radiation dose ranged between 9.9 and 31.3 mSv in patients without modulation; the dose ranged between 5.4 and 16.6 mSv in patients with modulation.
Cardiac CT in a “triple rule-out” protocol allows clinicians to look for coronary artery disease, aortic dissections, and pulmonary emboli — three potentially life-threatening causes of chest pain that can be missed in a stress test.
The study appears in the journal American Journal of Roentgenology.
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