Perfusion Scanning - CT Perfusion

CT Perfusion

The method by which perfusion to an organ measured by CT is still a relatively new concept, although the original framework and principles were concretely laid out as early as 1980 by Leon Axel at University of California San Francisco. It is most commonly carried out for neuroimaging using dynamic sequential scanning of a pre-selected region of the brain during the injection of a bolus of iodinated contrast material as it travels through the vasculature. Various mathematical models can then be used to process the raw temporal data to ascertain quantitative information such as rate of cerebral blood flow (CBF) following an ischemic stroke or aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage. Practical CT perfusion as performed on modern CT scanners was first described by Ken Miles, Mike Hayball and Adrian Dixon from Cambridge UK and subsequently developed by many individuals including Matthias Koenig and Ernst Klotz in Germany, and later by Max Wintermark in Switzerland and Ting-Yim Lee in Ontario, Canada.