Spectral and dual-energy X-ray imaging for medical applications

TL;DR

Spectral and dual-energy X-ray imaging in medicine utilize energy-dependent attenuation to enhance contrast, enable material decomposition, and improve image quality, with recent advances driven by new detector technologies.

Contribution

This review summarizes the current technological developments and practical applications of spectral and dual-energy X-ray imaging in medical diagnostics.

Findings

Spectral imaging improves contrast-to-noise ratio.

Material decomposition reduces image artefacts.

Recent detector technology advances enable new imaging capabilities.

Abstract

Spectral imaging is an umbrella term for energy-resolved x-ray imaging in medicine. The technique makes use of the energy dependence of x-ray attenuation to either increase the contrast-to-noise ratio, or to provide quantitative image data and reduce image artefacts by so-called material decomposition. Spectral imaging is not new, but has gained interest in recent years because of rapidly increasing availability of spectral and dual-energy CT and the dawn of energy-resolved photon-counting detectors. This review examines the current technological status of spectral and dual-energy imaging and a number of practical applications of the technology.