New Approaches to Dose Reduction in Interventional CT Imaging

Imaging in the interventional suite has enabled the use of minimally invasive treatment in cases that were traditionally facing surgery. Nowadays stenoses in the coronary arteries or cerebral malformations can be treated without having to open the thorax or skull and microscopic devices can be implanted in an endovascular manner. The morbidity and mortality of this kind of therapy reduced steadily over the past decade because of advances in technology [1]. The state-of-the-art in imaging for most cardiac and neurological treatment options is x-ray fluoroscopy using angiographic C-arm systems. Figure 1 shows two scanners that are commonly used for such purposes in the interventional room. Using x-rays for imaging has many advantages such as imaging in real-time that allows direct feedback in catheter guidance, high image quality, and few additional constraints on the interventional workflow. However, the use of x-rays always also implies a certain radiation dose for the patient. For the case of 2D, i.e. fluoroscopy imaging, several measures to reduc