Thoracic CT Imaging with Dose Reduction

Thoracic CT examinations were performed using four CT systems (CT 750 HD, GE Healthcare; Brilliance iCT, Philips Healthcare; Somatom Definition Flash, Siemens Healthineers and Aquilion One, Canon Medical Systems). In the remainder of this paper, the four CT systems are denoted as CT-A to CT-D, respectively (Additional file 1: Table S2). All images were reconstructed using filtered back projection (FBP) and three levels of iterative reconstruction (IR). Each examination was performed at a clinical radiation dose. Subsequently, the radiation dose was reduced by 40% and 80% [19 (link)]. Each combination of acquisition settings was repeated five times on every CT scan. In between each scan, the phantom was randomly translated by 2 mm.