Impact of contrast enhancement boost and super-resolution deep learning reconstruction on pediatric congenital heart disease CTA scans: ultra-low contrast dose

作者：Xinyan Zhou, Junyi Li, Tengfei Ke, Daoqiang Xiong, Liu Fei, Na Tan, Xirui Duan, Xiaolan Du, Feifei Zhou, Wan Shen, Rong Qian, Guochen Li, Guangrong Zheng, Lei Tang, Chengde Liao · 发表于：BMC Medical Imaging · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1186/s12880-025-02015-2 · 被引用次数：2 · 研究领域：Congenital Heart Disease Studies、Pediatric Urology and Nephrology Studies、Ultrasound and Hyperthermia Applications

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the feasibility of using contrast enhancement boost (CE-Boost) combined with super-resolution deep learning reconstruction (SR-DLR) to reduce contrast agent dosage in pediatric patients with congenital heart disease (CHD). METHODS: A total of 72 pediatric CHD patients were divided into the low-contrast-dose group (CE-Boost group, injection of 0.5 mL per kilogram of body weight, n = 36) or the standard-scan group (CE-CT group, 1.5 mL per kilogram of body weight, n = 36), both groups undergoing imaging with SR-DLR. The two imaging protocols were compared based on radiation dose, objective image quality, subjective evaluation, and diagnostic accuracy. To quantitatively evaluate image quality, CT attenuation (HU) and standard deviation (SD) values were measured within ROIs at the four-chamber plane for cardiac chambers; an anonymized dataset was assessed using a double-blind methodology by two independent readers blinded to the clinical information and prior diagnoses of the pediatric patients. RESULTS: CE-Boost combined with SR-DLR significantly reduced contrast agent usage (62.3% reduction compared to CE-CT, P < 0.001) while maintaining image quality comparable to the conventional contrast protocol (P > 0.05). There was no significant difference in radiation dose parameters, including dose-length product (DLP, mGy·cm) and volume-weighted CT dose index (CTDIvol, mGy) (all P > 0.1), while the effective dose (ED) in the CE-Boost group was slightly lower but ...