Clinical applications of virtual, non-contrast head images derived from dual-source, dual-energy cerebrovascular computed tomography angiography

This study set out to evaluate the utility of cerebrovascular virtual non-contrast (VNC) scans.
Conventional non-contrast (CNC) and dual-energy computed tomography angiography (DE-CTA) head scans were conducted on 100 subjects, of which 46 were normal, 15 had parenchymal hematomas of the brain, 13 had ischemic infarction, 22 had tumors, and 4 had calcified lesions. VNC images were extracted from the DE-CTA head scans by post-processing. The true (or conventional) and VNC images were compared in terms of the mean CT attenuation value and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the cerebral parenchyma, the image quality, the lesion detection sensitivity, and the radiation exposure level.
The image qualities of the CNC and VNC scans were (4.95 ± 0.22) points and (3.94 ± 0.24) points (t = 31.18, P VNC and contrast-enhanced images could be obtained from DE-CTA head scans and could aid in the diagnosis of cerebral lesions. The radiation dose from the VNC scan was less than that from the CNC scan.