CT artifacts

Changed by Daniel J Bell, 2 Jul 2019

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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 artifact) 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 hardening
- cupping artifact
- streak and dark 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

-<p><strong>CT artifacts</strong> are common and can occur for various reasons. Knowledge of these artifacts is important because they can mimic pathology (e.g. partial volume artifact) or can degrade image quality to non-diagnostic levels. </p><p>CT artifacts can be classified according to the underlying cause of the artifact. </p><h5>Patient-based artifacts</h5><ul>
+<p><strong>CT artifacts</strong> are common and can occur for various reasons. Knowledge of these <a title="Artifacts" href="/articles/artifact">artifacts</a> is important because they can mimic pathology (e.g. partial volume artifact) or can degrade image quality to non-diagnostic levels. </p><p>CT artifacts can be classified according to the underlying cause of the artifact. </p><h5>Patient-based artifacts</h5><ul>
+<li><a title="Clothing artifact" href="/articles/clothing-artifact">clothing artifact</a></li>
+<li><a title="Jewellery artifacts" href="/articles/jewellery-artifacts-1">jewellery artifact</a></li>
~~-</ul><h4>See also</h4><ul><li><a href="/articles/mri-artifacts-1">MRI artifacts</a></li></ul>~~
+</ul><h4>See also</h4><ul>
+<li><a title="Artifacts" href="/articles/artifact">artifacts (general)</a></li>
+<li><a href="/articles/mri-artifacts-1">MRI artifacts</a></li>
+</ul>

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