HELICAL COMPUTED-TOMOGRAPHY SCANNING OF THE THORAX AND ABDOMEN

We applied helical CT to examinations of the abdomen and thorax. Scann ing was performed continuously while the couchtop of the CT scanner wa s shifted at a constant speed. The entire lung field could be scanned during a single holding of the breath when the couchtop speed was 20 m m/s. Tumors as small as 3 mm were detected. The diagnostic detectabili ty and accuracy of helical CT were far superior to those of convention al chest radiography. During abdominal examination, the target organ c ould be scanned at any specified phase (preferably arterial) during th e injection of contrast medium. We detected very small hepatic tumors which could not be detected by conventional CT. Helical CT produced co ntinuous data, which was reconstructed to display three-dimensional im ages. Helical CT could be used in mass screening for the detection of early lung cancer and in computer-aided diagnosis.