Dual-energy C-arm CT in the angiographic suite

Dual-energy CT techniques have demonstrated tremendous clinical value due to their ability to distinguish materials based on atomic number. C-arm CT is currently used to guide interventional procedures, but there are no commercially available systems that employ dual-energy material decomposition. This paper explores the feasibility of implementing a fast kV-switching technique to perform dual-energy C-arm CT on a clinical angiography system. As an initial proof of concept, a fast kV-switching scan with energies of 90 kV and 125 kV was compared to respective constant kV scans. During rapid kV-switching acquisitions, the energy produced by the tube at each pulse is up to 5% lower than the energy produced during kV-constant acquisitions. The small instability in the produced kV, measured as the standard deviation of the kV produced in each pulse, is up to 4 times higher for kV-switching acquisitions. These minor deficits resulted in a small reduction in contrast resolution of the fast kV-switching 3D reconstructions.