Poésy Serena, Andreu-Arasa V Carlota, Takumi Koji, Ryoo Inseon, Buch Karen, Sakai Osamu
Department of Radiology, Boston Medical Center, Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA.
Division of Neuroradiology, Department of Radiology, Department of Veterans Affairs, VA Boston Healthcare System, Boston, MA, USA.
Emerg Radiol. 2025 Aug 28. doi: 10.1007/s10140-025-02374-x.
Dual-energy computed tomography (DECT) has been widely used in acute clinical settings to add diagnostic confidence and accuracy in head and neck imaging. Given the complexity of the head and neck anatomy, delayed or inaccurate diagnosis of abnormalities involving the head and neck region can result in poor outcomes and possibly life-threatening consequences. This article aims to familiarize radiologists with the clinical applications and limitations of DECT in emergency head and neck imaging to maintain interpretative accuracy and improve patients' outcomes. Here, we demonstrate the profound capabilities of DECT for detecting and characterizing pathologies in the head and neck region with its superior abilities to differentiate materials, improve contrast enhancement, and reduce beam hardening artifacts. The robust imaging protocols and diverse post-processing algorithms of DECT enable radiologists to make diagnoses more quickly and accurately while accounting for suboptimal imaging from poor contrast opacification and/or beam hardening artifacts, unexpected pathologies, and reduction of unnecessary additional studies, and therefore, reduction of radiation dose and improvement of workflow in the emergency setting.
双能计算机断层扫描（DECT）已广泛应用于急性临床环境，以增强头颈部成像的诊断可信度和准确性。鉴于头颈部解剖结构的复杂性，对头颈部区域异常的延迟诊断或不准确诊断可能导致不良后果，甚至可能危及生命。本文旨在使放射科医生熟悉DECT在急诊头颈部成像中的临床应用和局限性，以保持解读准确性并改善患者预后。在此，我们展示了DECT在检测和表征头颈部区域病变方面的强大能力，它具有卓越的物质区分能力、改善对比增强以及减少线束硬化伪影的能力。DECT强大的成像协议和多样的后处理算法使放射科医生能够在考虑到因对比剂充盈不佳和/或线束硬化伪影导致的次优成像、意外病变以及减少不必要的额外检查的情况下，更快速、准确地做出诊断，从而在急诊环境中减少辐射剂量并改善工作流程。
