The Small Lung Nodule Profile outlines six fundamental image quality characteristics that are needed throughout the full scanner field of view to support precise volumetric measurement of small lung nodules. These characteristics are (1) Edge Enhancement, (2) Three-Dimensional Resolution, (3) Resolution Aspect Ratio, (4) CT linearity, (5) Spatial Warping, and (6) Noise. These fundamental image quality properties can now be quickly and easily measured throughout the full CT scanner field of view by a medical physicist or technologist at any clinical site using the new CTLX1 CT image quality measurement phantom and fully automated and cloud-based phantom analysis software.

A CTLX1 phantom analysis conformance report consists of three sections. The first section titled “Scanner and Protocol Settings” shows the image acquisition parameters that were stored in the DICOM images for the submitted scan. The parameters shown in this section include Tube mA, Tube kVp, slice thickness, slice spacing, and pitch. The next section titled “Conformance Assessment Status” shows the overall pass or fail status of the conformance tests performed with the phantom scan data. A summary sentence at the end of the paragraph that is green indicates a passing report and red indicates a report with issues that need to be addressed. The final section titled “Measured Image Quality Characteristics” shows the quantitative performance of the six fundamental image quality characteristics at three locations from scanner iso-center. Similar to the previous section, receiving all green check marks indicates a passing automated phantom analysis report while receiving one or more red checks indicates that an issue was identified. An example of a report with no issues can be found here and a report with multiple issues can be found here. [These pdf reports will be provided]

Each CT scanner that is supported by a QIBA Conformance Certification Service agreement may make no more than 30 phantom analysis report requests within a calendar week for a single CT scanner. Please contact Accumetra at info@accumetra.com if higher numbers of reports are needed.

Institutions that purchase QIBA Conformance Certification Service agreements for more than 10 CT scanners will receive a 10% discount on the total cost of the service and phantoms.

Accumetra’s Data Use Policy can be found here.

Accumetra is a medical device manufacturer that is registered with the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Both the CTLX1 phantom and the AQA phantom analysis system are compliant with FDA regulations.

Please contact Accumetra at info@accumetra.com for the current regulatory device status of the CTLX1 phantom and the ACQA phantom analysis system for countries outside the United Sates. At the present time the CTLX1 phantom and the ACQA phantom analysis system do not have a CE Mark and can only be used for research in the European Union.