Assessment of Contrast Enhancement Boost for the Direct Identification of Pulmonary Emboli in Thoracic CT Angiography

Pulmonary embolism is a common cardiovascular disease and thoracic CT angiography is currently considered the gold standard for its non-invasive diagnosis. However, the diagnostic performance of CT angiography can be hampered by an insufficient enhancement of pulmonary arteries. Contrast Enhancement Boost (CE Boost) is a post-processing technique using an iodine density map to artificially improve pulmonary artery enhancement. This retrospective study compares standard CT-angiography images with CE Boost images to assess the potential improvement of diagnostic performance for the detection of pulmonary embolism.