Accupaque 350 mg ml

All CT scans were performed for clinical indications on the same spectral detector CT scanner (IQon Spectral CT, Philips Healthcare). Patients were scanned in a head first, supine position. The institutional CT protocol for tumor evaluation following MWA comprises an arterial and a portal-venous phase image acquisition of the liver. Administration of 100 ml non-ionic, iodinated contrast media bolus (Accupaque 350 mg/ml, GE Healthcare) followed by a 30 ml saline chaser is routinely performed with an automated injection system at a flow rate of 3.5 ml/s (MEDRAD^® Stellant^®, Bayer Vital AG). Bolus-tracking technique (threshold of 150 Hounsfield Units (HU) in the abdominal aorta) was used and image acquisition started with a delay of 15 and 50 s, respectively. Tube current modulation was activated in all patients (DoseRight 3D-DOM; Philips Healthcare). Detailed scanning parameters are reported in Table 1.

All patients were scanned with the same dlDECT (IQOn, (Philips Healthcare, Best, The Netherlands). CT scans were conducted with a defined dosage of 60 mL contrast media (Accupaque 350 mg/mL, GE Healthcare; Little Chalfort, UK) and scan 30 seconds after bolus application via an antecubital vein, 4 mL/s flow rate, followed by the saline chaser. The following scanning parameters were kept constant in all scans: collimation = 64 × 0.625 mm; rotation time = 0.4 s; pitch = 0.422; tube potential = 120 kVp, matrix = 512 × 512; 300 mAs without dose modulation. Patients were positioned supine and scanned in a craniocaudal direction. All axial images were reconstructed with a slice thickness of 2 mm and a section increment of 1 mm using a dedicated spectral reconstruction algorithm with a strength level of 3 and a constant kernel (Spectral B, Philips Healthcare, Best, The Netherlands). Image analysis was performed offline on a dedicated workstation (IntelliSpace Portal 6.5, Philips Healthcare, Best, The Netherlands).