Misinterpretations about CT numbers, material decomposition, and elemental quantification.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Quantitative CT imaging, particularly iodine and calcium quantification, is an important CT-based biomarker.

Purpose

This study quantifies sources of errors in quantitative CT imaging in both single-energy and spectral CT.

Materials and methods

This work examines the theoretical relationship between CT numbers, linear attenuation coefficient, and material quantification. We derive four understandings: (1) CT numbers are not proportional with element mass in vivo, (2) CT numbers are proportional with element mass only when contained in a voxel of pure water, (3) iodine-water material decomposition is never accurate in vivo, and (4) for error-free material decomposition a voxel must only consist of the basis decomposition vectors. Misinterpretation-based erro

SUBMITTER: Salyapongse AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11782396 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature