Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the high pitch protocol method of dual-energy computed tomography can be successfully applied to a lumbar vertebrae CT scan and reduce the effect of exposure dose; the main indicators were the image quality and reduced scan time. This study was conducted using MDCT 256 row dual source, Somatom Definition Flash (Siemens medical system: Germany), on 69 patients who had lumbar vertebrae CT scans from March 1, 2021, to June 30, 2021. First, to determine the applicability of the high pitch protocol method, the phantom images quality was compared with that of the existing lumbar vertebrae CT scan method and the examination method using the high pitch protocol method with the AAPM phantom, respectively. In the phantom image, CT noise, uniformity, and spatial resolution were not significantly different between the existing lumbar vertebrae CT scan method and the examination method using the high pitch protocol. In addition, in images examined from clinical patients, single-sample ttest results of the comparison of the mean value of CT noise, uniformity, and spatial resolution did not show statistically significant differences, 0.081, 0.078, and 0.387, respectively. The results of the qualitative evaluation showed that all were also higher than 3 points, which is fair, and the radiation dose was reduced by 9.76% in the high pitch protocol. When examining the lumbar region with dual-energy computed tomography, the examination method using high-pitch mode reduced the radiation dose and shortened the examination time, with the same image quality as that of the existing lumbar vertebrae CT scan.