CT artifacts

Changed by Andrew Murphy, 16 Oct 2016

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CT artifacts are common and can occur for various reasons. Knowledge of these artifacts is important because they can mimic pathology (e.g. partial volume artefact) or can degrade image quality to non-diagnostic levels.

CT artifacts can be classified according to the underlying cause of the artifact.

Patient-based artifacts

Physics-based artifacts

beam ~~hardering~~hardening
- cupping artifact
- streak and darks bands
- metal artifact/high-density foreign material artifact
partial volume averaging
quantum mottle (noise)
photon starvation
aliasing in CT

Hardware-based artifacts

Helical and multichannel artifacts

windmill artifact
cone beam effect
MPR artifact
- zebra artifact
- stair step artifact

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