Study measures accuracy of iodine quantification

The accuracy of iodine quantification is becoming a critical question as researchers rely increasingly on dual-energy CT to quantify the composition of scanned materials. Researchers tested three different scanners to find out how well they do the job.

"In this study, iodine concentration accuracy was assessed for second- and third-generation dual-source CT and for a research whole-body photon-counting CT system," wrote Cynthia McCollough, PhD, professor of medical physics and bioengineering at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. They compared the measurements to the known iodine concentrations and calculated the root-mean-square errors for each phantom size.

The researchers found a linear relationship between measured and true concentrations, and all measurements were more accurate for phantoms 35 cm and smaller. The phantom studies showed high accuracy for iodine quantification, with only slight degradation for larger phantoms.