Validity of Linear Measurements of the Jaws Using Ultra-Low Dose MDCT and the Iterative Techniques of ASIR and MBIR

Journal Article
Al-Ekrish, Asma'a A. . 2016
Publication Work Type: 
Original Research
Tags: 
CT, MDCT, iterative reconstruction technique, ASIR, MBIR, accuracy, linear, measurement, kernel
Magazine \ Newspaper: 
International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery
Issue Number: 
10
Volume Number: 
11
Pages: 
1791- 1801. DOI: 10.1007/s11548-016-1419-y
Publication Abstract: 

Purpose: To assess the comparability of linear measurements of dental implant sites recorded from multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) images obtained using standard dose filtered backprojection (FBP) technique with those from various ultralow doses combined with FBP, adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction (ASIR) and model based iterative reconstruction ( MBIR) techniques. The results of the study may contribute to MDCT dose optimization for dental implant site imaging.
Methods: MDCT scans of two cadavers were acquired using a standard reference protocol and four ultra-low dose test protocols (TP). The Volume CT Dose Index of the different dose protocols ranged from from a maximum of 30.48-36.71 mGy to a minimum of 0.44-0.53 mGy. All scans were reconstructed using FBP, ASIR-50, ASIR-100, and MBIR, and either a bone or standard reconstruction kernel. Linear measurements  were recorded from standardized images of the jaws by two examiners. Intra- and inter-examiner reliability of the measurements were analyzed using Cronbach's alpha and Inter-Item Correlation. Agreement between the measurements obtained with the reference dose/FBP protocol and each of the test protocols was determined with Bland-Altman plots and linear regression. Statistical significance was set at a P- value of 0.05.
Results: No systematic variation was found between the linear measurements obtained with the reference protocol and the other imaging protocols. The only exceptions were TP3/ASIR 50 (bone kernel) and TP4/ ASIR 100 (bone and standard kernels). The mean measurement differences between these three protocols and the reference protocol were within + 0.1 mm, with the 95 % confidence interval limits being within the range of +1.15 mm.
Conclusions: A nearly 97.5 % reduction in dose did not significantly affect the height and width measurements of edentulous jaws regardless of the reconstruction algorithm used.