Purpose: To investigate how much the radiation dose in digital cine angiography (DCA) systems can be reduced while maintaining an image quality equivalent to that of conventional cine angiography (CCA).
Materials and methods: Simulated vessel phantoms were subjected to DCA and CCA. In DCA, the input dose value to the image intensifier built in the system was 0.10, 0.12, 0.14, 0.17, 0.2, and 0.24 microGy. The detectability for simulated vessel phantoms was visually evaluated by five observers. The radiation dose was measured using radiofluorescent glass-rod dosimeters. Doses of digital cine imaging were measured as relative values with the dose of CCA considered as 1.0.
Results: The relative DCA/CCA values in DCA, measured by radiofluorescent glass-rod dosimeters, ranged from 0.414 to 0.901 for simulated vessel phantoms
Conclusion: DCA allows a reduction by 59% of the radiation dose compared with CCA without reduction of image quality.