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Three-dimensional CT angiography of the pancreatic artery in 16-channel multislice CT: value of scanning with submillimetre collimation

¹ Department of Radiology, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, ² Department of Technical Radiology, Nagoya University School of Health Sciences, Nagoya, Japan

Correspondence: Satoko Ishigaki, Department of Radiology, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, 65 Tsurumai-cho, Showa-ku, Nagoya 466-8560, Japan. E-mail: satoko{at}med.nagoya-u.ac.jp

The aim of this study was to assess the effects of the reconstructed thickness of axial images on image quality of CT pancreatic arteriography with 16-channel multislice CT. In 31 consecutive patients, raw data of arterial-phase scanning with 0.5 mm collimation were reconstructed in the following three ways: 0.5 mm thickness (effective thickness of 0.75 mm) at 0.4 mm intervals in Group 1; 1 mm thickness at 0.5 mm intervals in Group 2; and 2 mm thickness at 1 mm intervals in Group 3. For the visualization of major arteries and small arteries of the pancreatic head, four blinded readers independently performed side-by-side comparison of the CT arteriographic images generated from each axial dataset for the same patient using a three-dimensional volume-rendered technique. In all comparisons using a continuous rating scale, CT arteriographic images generated from thinner axial images were found to be significantly superior (p<0.01). The difference was more pronounced for small arteries. The degree of degradation from Group 1 to Group 2 was markedly smaller than that from Group 1 to Group 3 or from Group 2 to Group 3. For small arteries, paired images were assigned a grade of "almost equivalent" in 73%, 6% and 15% of the comparison between Group 1 and Group 2, Group 1 and Group 3, and Group 2 and Group 3, respectively. We concluded that the image quality of CT pancreatic arteriography, especially for small arteries, can be improved by reconstructing axial images with thinner thickness from the data obtained with submillimetre collimation.