Low-contrast resolution in volumetric x-ray CT--analytical comparison between conventional and spiral CT.

Spiral/helical computed tomography (CT) was introduced to scan an anatomical volume in a single breath-hold for better temporal resolution as compared to conventional CT. Recently, it was established that given an x-ray dose, spiral CT also allows better longitudinal high-contrast resolution due to retrospective reconstruction. In spiral CT, full scan with interpolation (FI) and half-scan with interpolation (HI) are limited by the degraded slice sensitivity profile and increased image noise, respectively. We combined these two interpolation methods for a desirable balance. This new interpolation method, FI + HI, was shown to produce 4% lower image noise standard deviation than conventional CT, without loss of longitudinal bandwidth according to one-tenth-cutoff and mean-square-root measures. The analytic model of image noise was validated in a water phantom experiment. Our findings suggest the superiority of spiral CT over conventional CT in terms of both low-contrast resolution and high-contrast resolution.