From Sixteen Slices To Nowadays - Cardiothoracic Imaging With Ct

The broad introduction of multi-detector row computed tomography (MDCT) into clinical practice in 1998 constituted a fundamental evolutionary step in the development and ongoing refinement of CT-imaging techniques. The first generation of MDCT systems offered simultaneous acquisition of four slices at a shortest gantry rotation time of 0.5 s and provided considerable improvement of scan speed and longitudinal (z-axis) resolution and better utilization of the available X-ray power compared with previous generations of single-slice CT systems (Klingenbeck et al. 1999; Mc Collough and Zink 1999; Hu et al. 2000). As a consequence, high-resolution imaging of larger anatomical volumes, such as the entire thorax, with a single scan acquisition and a single contrast medium injection became feasible, see Figure 1.1. Fig. 1.1a–c. Case study (coronal MPRs) of a thorax examination in a patient with pulmonary embolism, illustrating the increased clinical performance from (a) single-slice CT (8-mm slices) to (b) 4-slice CT (1.25-mm slices), and (c) 64-slice CT (0.75-mm slices). Compared with single-slice CT scanners, four-slice CT systems brought about considerably improved longitudinal resolution in equivalent examination times (30 s to cover the thorax). Sixty-four-slice CT scanners provide significantly reduced examination times (5 s to cover the thorax) in combination with isotropic sub-millimeter resolution. The single-slice and 4-slice images were synthesized from the 64-slice CT data (courtesy of Profs. J. Remy and M. Remy-Jardin, Hopital Calmette, Lille, France)