The X-ray angiography short-bolus technique

The authors introduce a new angiographic protocol, the short-bolus technique. The thrust of this technique is to minimize the amount of contrast material delivered to a patient. This is accomplished by injecting a reduced amount of contrast material followed by image post-processing to construct the final image. The image processing “stacks” many individual frames with only a small portion of the arterial tree opacified to create the final, fully opacified image. The authors have applied the technique to digitally-acquired angiographic images of the lower leg. With this technique they achieve comparable image quality with the standard clinical technique with a contrast material savings of 66 percent