TITLE:
Evaluation of New Commercially Available Metal Artifact Reduction (MAR) Algorithm on Both Image Quality and Relative Dosimetry for Patients with Hip Prosthesis or Dental Fillings
AUTHORS:
Vicky W. Huang, Kirpal Kohli
KEYWORDS:
CT, Metal Artifact Reduction, Dosimetry
JOURNAL NAME:
International Journal of Medical Physics, Clinical Engineering and Radiation Oncology,
Vol.6 No.2,
May
17,
2017
ABSTRACT: Streaking
artifacts on computed tomography (CT) images are caused by high density
materials such as hip prosthesis, surgical clips and dental fillings. The
artifacts can lead to compromised clinical outcome due to the inability to
differentiate tumor volume and the uncertainties in dose calculation. The goals
of our study are to evaluate how GE’s smart metal artifact reduction (MAR)
algorithm impacts image quality on phantoms and dosimetry on head and neck
patients with dental fillings and pelvic patients with hip prosthesis. Treatment
plans calculated on the MAR and non-MAR datasets with the same beam
arrangements and fluence are compared. Dose differences between the MAR and
non-MAR datasets are not significant. However, substantial reductions of metal
artifacts are observed when MAR algorithm is applied. Planning on the MAR
dataset is recommended since it improves image quality and CT number accuracy. It
also negates the need to contour the artifacts and override the density which
can be time consuming.