Detection of artificial pulmonary lung nodules in Ultralow-Dose CT using an ex vivo lung phantom

Purpose: To assess the image quality of 3 different ultra low-dose CT protocols with model based iterative reconstruction (IR) on pulmonary nodule depiction in a ventilated ex vivo-system. Methods: Two porcine lungs were inflated inside a dedicated chest phantom and prepared with n = 25 artificial nodules (0.5 – 1 ml). The artificial chest wall was filled with water to simulate the absorption of a human chest. Images were acquired with a 2 × 192-row detector CT using normal, low-dose and 3 different ultra low-dose (ULD) protocols (effective dosis: respectively 4 mSv). A different tube voltage was used for each U…