Characterization of osteolytic lesions by low-dose spectral CT in myeloma patients

Abstract

This paper presents a preliminary study of characterization of focal osteolytic lesions in low-dose spectral CT in myeloma patients. Spectral CT with energy decomposition into two energies allows us to use post-processing software for creating several parametric maps as well as so-called monoenergetic images. The paper includes a demonstration of the different contrast of lytic lesions in the spine and a comparison of healthy vertebrae and vertebrae affected by focal lytic lesions. It is shown that lytic lesions are better recognizable on a 40 keV monoenergetic image compared to conventional CT.