title: Cardiac CT: A system architecture study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  We are interested in exploring dedicated, high-performance cardiac CT systems optimized to provide the best tradeoff between system cost, image quality, and radiation dose.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  We sought to identify and evaluate a broad range of CT architectures that could provide an optimal, dedicated cardiac CT solution.
  
  
  METHODS
  We identified and evaluated thirty candidate architectures using consistent design choices. We defined specific evaluation metrics related to cost and performance. We then scored the candidates versus the defined metrics. Lastly, we applied a weighting system to combine scores for all metrics into a single overall score for each architecture. CT experts with backgrounds in cardiovascular radiology, x-ray physics, CT hardware and CT algorithms performed the scoring and weighting.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We found nearly a twofold difference between the most and the least promising candidate architectures. Architectures employed by contemporary commercial diagnostic CT systems were among the highest-scoring candidates. We identified six architectures that show sufficient promise to merit further in-depth analysis and comparison.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results suggest that contemporary diagnostic CT system architectures outperform most other candidates that we evaluated, but the results for a few alternatives were relatively close. We selected six representative high-scoring candidates for more detailed design and further comparative evaluation.
authors.affiliation: CT Systems and Applications Laboratory, GE Global Research Center, 1 Research Circle, Niskayuna NY, USA.
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: FitzGerald
authors.affiliation: Biomedical Imaging Division, VT-WFU School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, Virginia Tech., Blacksburg, VA, USA.
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bennett
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Division of Radiologic Sciences, Wake Forest University Health Sciences, Winston-Salem, NC, USA.
authors.forename: Jeffrey
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Carr
authors.affiliation: CT Systems and Applications Laboratory, GE Global Research Center, 1 Research Circle, Niskayuna NY, USA.
authors.forename: Peter M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Edic
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Division of Radiologic Sciences, Wake Forest University Health Sciences, Winston-Salem, NC, USA.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Entrikin
authors.affiliation: CT Systems and Applications Laboratory, GE Global Research Center, 1 Research Circle, Niskayuna NY, USA.
authors.forename: Hewei
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: CT Systems and Applications Laboratory, GE Global Research Center, 1 Research Circle, Niskayuna NY, USA.
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Iatrou
authors.affiliation: CT Systems and Applications Laboratory, GE Global Research Center, 1 Research Circle, Niskayuna NY, USA.
authors.forename: Yannan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Jin
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Division of Radiologic Sciences, Wake Forest University Health Sciences, Winston-Salem, NC, USA.|Biomedical Imaging Division, VT-WFU School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, Wake Forest University Health Sciences, Winston-Salem, NC, USA.
authors.forename: Baodong
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Biomedical Imaging Division, VT-WFU School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, Virginia Tech., Blacksburg, VA, USA.|Biomedical Imaging Division, VT-WFU School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, Wake Forest University Health Sciences, Winston-Salem, NC, USA.|Department of Biomedical Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Ge
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: CT Systems and Applications Laboratory, GE Global Research Center, 1 Research Circle, Niskayuna NY, USA.
authors.forename: Jiao
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: CT Systems and Applications Laboratory, GE Global Research Center, 1 Research Circle, Niskayuna NY, USA.
authors.forename: Zhye
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yin
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Division of Radiologic Sciences, Wake Forest University Health Sciences, Winston-Salem, NC, USA.|Biomedical Imaging Division, VT-WFU School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, Wake Forest University Health Sciences, Winston-Salem, NC, USA.
authors.forename: Hengyong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: CT Systems and Applications Laboratory, GE Global Research Center, 1 Research Circle, Niskayuna NY, USA.
authors.forename: Kai
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zeng
authors.affiliation: CT Systems and Applications Laboratory, GE Global Research Center, 1 Research Circle, Niskayuna NY, USA.
authors.forename: Bruno
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: De Man
mesh_terms: D057791:Cardiac Imaging Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D006801:Humans; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods*
keywords: CT; Computed tomography; cardiovascular disease; cardiovascular imaging