Application of low-tube current with iterative model reconstruction on Philips Brilliance iCT Elite FHD in the accuracy of spinal QCT using a European spine phantom

Osteoporosis can be diagnosed by noninvasive bone mineral density (BMD) test, and BMD usually reflect more than 75% of bone strength (1). Recent studies have shown that the proportion of osteoporosis in men and women over the age of 50 in China is 10.4% and 31.2% respectively (2), indicating an increasing demand for BMD measurement. Nowadays, it is of great research interest to use reasonable low-dose in BMD measurement combined with low-dose CT scan under the premise of meeting clinical diagnostic imaging quality. The objective of this study was to repeatedly measure BMD of a known internal “real-density” European spine phantom (ESP) using multicenter lumbar quantitative CT (QCT) (3). The accuracy of different mAs and different iterative algorithms was evaluated and the deviation in the repeatability and accuracy of QCT BMD measurement with low mAs joint iterative algorithms was explored under the premise of not affecting the BMD accuracy