Dual-Energy Computed Tomography: Technology and Challenges.

Dual-energy computed tomography (CT) is an imaging technique in which the same axial slice of the patient is scanned with two different X-ray spectra in order to extract chemical information or improve diagnostic image quality. This method is useful for the detection or visualization of heavy atoms like iodine but the differentiation of soft tissue types containing only light atoms is usually not markedly improved compared with single-energy CT. The commercially available dual-energy CT scanners use different technological approaches that differ in complexity and result quality.