title: Quantitative and qualitative comparison of standard-dose and low-dose pediatric head computed tomography: a retrospective study assessing the effect of adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Our aim was to assess the effect of adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction (ASIR) on pediatric head computed tomography (CT) examinations.
  
  
  METHODS
  We retrospectively reviewed 305 pediatric head CT examinations. The study population consisted of standard dose (STD, n = 152) examinations reconstructed with filtered back projection and low dose (LD, n = 153) examinations reconstructed with 30% (LD30) and 0% (LD0) ASIR. We compared groups by means of radiation dose, noise measures, and visual grading. Student t test, 1-way analysis of variance test, and Mann-Whitney U test were used for statistical analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The dose in the LD30 group was significantly lower (29%) than that in the STD group (P < 0.001). The noise in the white matter (P < 0.001), SNR (P < 0.001), and subjective image noise (P = 0.044) was significantly better in the STD group than those in the LD30 group. There was no significant difference between LD30 and STD groups in the sharpness (P = 0.141), diagnostic acceptability (P = 0.079), and artifacts (P = 0.750) and contrast-to-noise ratio (P = 0.718).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In conclusion, we found that a blend of 30% ASIR in a 16-slice multidetector CT produces diagnostically acceptable pediatric head CT examinations with a 29% less dose.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Gazi University School of Medicine, Ankara, Turkey. koraykilic@yahoo.com
authors.forename: Koray
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kilic
authors.forename: Gonca
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Erbas
authors.forename: Melike
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Guryildirim
authors.forename: Oznur Leman
authors.initials: OL
authors.lastname: Konus
authors.forename: Mehmet
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Arac
authors.forename: Erhan
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ilgit
authors.forename: Sedat
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Isik
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006257:Head / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D011829:Radiation Dosage; D011857:Radiographic Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods*