Somatom sensation 16

Four CT scanners, including a Siemens SOMATOM Definition Flash, Siemens SOMATOM Definition AS, Siemens SOMATOM Sensation 16, and GE Optima CT660, were used to acquire CECT images. Contrast medium (60 to 120 mL) was intravenously administered at a rate of 1.5 mL/s, followed by a 20 mL saline flush. All CECT images were obtained 90 s after contrast medium administration. The image size was 512 × 512 pixels. All images were reconstructed in 5 mm slices with a smooth standard convolution kernel (B40f), as previously described [31 (link)]. After CECT images were imported into the open-source software 3D Slicer version 4.10.2, the PMTs were manually contoured by a thoracic radiologist (C.Y.L.) with 9 years of experience, blinded to patient diagnosis, using the built-in paint tool as previously described [32 (link)]. Tumor segmentation was performed in the mediastinal setting (window level, 50 HU; window width, 350 HU) on the axial CT plane. For normalization, all CT voxels were resampled to 1 mm³ using a cubic interpolation.

All CT images were obtained using Siemens SOMATOM Definition Flash, Siemens SOMATOM Definition AS, Siemens SOMATOM Sensation 16, GE Optima CT660, GE Revolution CT, GE Bright Speed Elite, GE light speed VCT, and TOSHIBA CT64-TSX-01A64. The CT protocols were as follows: 120 kVp; tube current, 150–200 mAs with automatic tube current modulation. The section thickness ranged between 0.7 mm and 1.5 mm, and the image size was 512 × 512 pixels. The detailed protocol and contrast materials are summarized in Table E1. Three patients received solely non-enhanced CT scan due to renal function impairment, while the other patients received both non-enhanced and enhanced CT scan. Contrast enhanced images were obtained after intravenous administration of contrast medium (injection dose 60-120 mL at a rate of 1.5-3 ml/s) followed by a 20 ml saline flush. Contrast enhanced images were obtained 90s after contrast agent administration. All images were reconstructed into 5-mm sections.