Photon Counting CT (PCCT), which can obtain the energy information of each X-ray photon, is expected to provide new diagnoses. In the conventional CT, iodine contrast agent is often used to evaluate the tumor malignancy, and the capability of PCCT was evaluated about the discrimination between malignant tumors affected by iodine and some objects without iodine like blood clots, which is not necessarily be feasible without the energy information. The phantom with rods containing iohexol (0 - 3 mgI/mL) as the malignant tumor analogue and sucrose (0 - 200 mg/mL) as the benign tumor was used and material decomposition was performed into tin and PMMA as the basis materials. ROI values were derived in the basis material images and 70 keV virtual monochromatic image (VMI) for each rod. As a result, some rods of different compositions showed almost the same CT values in the 70 keV VMI, while the two-dimensional plot of tin and PMMA values demonstrated that the contribution of iodine and sucrose was clearly separated. This would mean that PCCT may bring improvement of quantitative iodine evaluation and better diagnosis on malignant and benign tumors.
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