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Objective: To assess in severely obese patients the subjective and objective image quality parameters and to estimate the radiation dose of dual-source computed tomography coronary angiography (CTCA), using 3 different protocols., Materials and Methods: Dual-source CTCA was performed in 60 patients (30 women; mean age 58 +/- 7 years) suffering from obesity class II or higher (body mass index [BMI] >35 kg/sq m). Twenty patients were examined with a standard CTCA protocol at 120 kV/350 mAs (protocol A), 20 patients with a CTCA protocol at 140 kV/350 mAs (protocol B), and 20 patients at 140 kV/350 mAs with a dedicated obesity protocol (protocol C), that allows the additional data sampling by expanding the data acquisition for each tube from a quarter to a half rotation, permitting to trade off temporal resolution and image noise. Two blinded observers independently assessed the image quality of each coronary segment, using a 4-point scale (1: excellent-4: nondiagnostic) and measured the different image parameters (image noise, signal-to-noise ratio [SNR], and contrast-to-noise ratio [CNR]). Radiation dose estimates were calculated., Results: The average BMI was 46.3 +/- 8.3 kg/sq m (range, 36.8-69.6 kg/sq m). Subjective image quality (1.55 +/- 0.73) was significantly better in protocol C when compared with protocol A (2.46 +/- 0.76; P < 0.01) and protocol B (2.12 +/- 0.87; P < 0.017). There was a significantly lower rate of coronary artery segments with nondiagnostic image quality when using the obesity protocol C (1.5%; 4/262) compared with that obtained when using protocol A (7.8%; 22/280; P < 0.01) and protocol B (4.4%; 12/275; P < 0.017). Image noise was significantly lower in protocol C (31.8 +/- 5.0 HU) when compared with group A (43.5 +/- 4.7 HU; P < 0.001) and B (36.8 +/- 5.5 HU; P < 0.01). SNR and CNR were significantly higher in group C (13.8 +/- 2.4 and 23.1 +/- 2.8) compared with group A (10.6 +/- 1.7 and 15.1 +/- 3.2; each P < 0.001) and group B (12.0 +/- 2.0 and 18.8 +/- 3.1; each P < 0.01). The estimated effective radiation dose of the obesity protocol C (15.6 +/- 0.9 mSv) was significantly higher when compared with that in protocol A (10.1 +/- 0.8 mSv; P < 0.01), but not significantly different from that in protocol B (13.3 +/- 0.8 mSv; P = 0.022)., Conclusions: Use of an obesity protocol in dual-source CTCA in severely obese patients significantly improves image quality, but goes along with a higher radiation dose.

Objective: To compare the image quality of mono- versus bisegment reconstruction algorithms for dual-source computed tomography coronary angiography (CTCA)., Materials and Methods: Eighty consecutive patients (27 women; average age, 60 +/- 12 years) were randomly assigned to 2 different CTCA scanning protocols: 40 patients (group A) underwent dual-source CTCA with a heart rate (HR)-dependent pitch adaptation with datasets reconstructed using the monosegment algorithm; 40 patients (group B) underwent CTCA at a fixed pitch of 0.2 and datasets were reconstructed using both mono- and bisegment algorithms. The temporal resolution was 82 milliseconds for mono- and 42 to 83 milliseconds (58 +/- 14 milliseconds) for bisegment reconstruction, the latter depending on the HR during CTCA. Images were reconstructed in the reconstruction phase having least motion artifacts in the individual patient, primarily during mid-diastole at 70% of the R-R interval. The HR variability was defined as the standard deviation from the average HR. Two blinded observers independently assessed the image quality of each coronary segment using a 4-point scale (1: excellent to 4: nonevaluable). Effective radiation dose estimates were calculated., Results: The overall image quality showed no significant differences between the 2 groups scanned with a fixed or a HR-adapted pitch (group A, score 1.21 +/- 0.63; group B, score 1.19 +/- 0.52). The overall image quality was superior when using monosegment (group A and B, score 1.21 +/- 0.63 and 1.19 +/- 0.52, respectively) when compared with the bisegment reconstruction algorithm (group B, score 1.33 +/- 0.72; P < 0.01). Image quality did not significantly correlate with average HR neither for monosegment (group A: r = 0.07; P = 0.35; group B: r = 0.06; P = 0.41) nor bisegment reconstructions (r = 0.07; P = 0.32). There was no significant correlation between image quality and HR variability using monosegment reconstructions (group A: r = 0.09; P = 0.22; group B: r = 0.05; P = 0.67), whereas a significant correlation was found for bisegment reconstructions (group B: r = 0.51; P < 0.01). The estimated effective radiation dose was significantly higher in group B (10.8 +/- 1.4 mSv) when compared with group A (9.0 +/- 0.8 mSv; P < 0.01)., Conclusions: Although providing a higher temporal resolution at certain HRs, the use of bisegment reconstructions for dual-source CTCA does not result in an improved overall image quality when compared with the monosegment reconstruction algorithm.