Coronary Stent on Coronary CT Angiography: Assessment with Model-Based Iterative Reconstruction Technique

Abstract

Purpose To assess the performance of model-based iterative reconstruction (MBIR) technique for evaluation of coronary artery stents on coronary CT angiography (CCTA). Materials and Methods Twenty-two patients with coronary stent implantation who underwent CCTA were retrospectively enrolled for comparison of image quality between filtered back projection (FBP), adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction (ASIR) and MBIR. In each data set, image noise was measured as the standard deviation of the measured attenuation units within circular regions of interest in the ascending aorta (AA) and left main coronary artery (LM). To objectively assess the noise and blooming artifacts in coronary stent, we additionally measured the standard deviation of the measured attenuation and intra-luminal stent diameters of total 35 stents with dedicated software. Results All image noise measured in the AA (all p < 0.001), LM (p < 0.001, p = 0.001) and coronary stent (all p < 0.001) were significantly lower with MBIR in comparison to those with FBP or ASIR. Intraluminal stent diameter was significantly higher with MBIR, as compared with ASIR or FBP (p < 0.001, p = 0.001). Conclusion MBIR can reduce image noise and blooming artifact from the stent, leading to better in-stent assessment in patients with coronary artery stent.

Keywords

• image reconstruction
• noise
• stent