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Christoph Becker is associate professor and section chief of the CT department at the University of Munich. Prior to this, he completed his graduate studies at Ludwig- Maximilians-University in Munich before taking up a residency in diagnostic radiology at the University of Munich followed by a fellowship in cardiovascular radiology.

Dr Becker’s previous publications cover CT angiography of cerebral aneurysms, investigation of different CT detectors and radiation exposure and comparison of cardiac investigations between electron beam CT and conventional CT for detection and quantification of coronary calcium. Dr Becker’s current focus is on CT angiography of coronary arteries and characterization of atherosclerotic plaques.
The impact of new CT technology on clinical practice

Christoph Becker, MD
Division of Cardiology, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD, USA

Christoph R Becker, MD
Associate Professor
Section Chief Body CT
Department of Clinical Radiology
University Hospital Grosshadern
D-81377 Munich, Germany
Tel: +49 89 7095-3620 Fax: +49 89 7095-8832
Email: christoph.becker@med.uni-muenchen.de

Abstract
With the introduction of multi-detector-row CT (MDCT), new applications such as cardiac CT angiography, lung and colon screening and scanning of polytrauma patients became feasible. Coronary artery disease can reliably be ruled out by MDCT and therefore the technique surpasses conventional invasive angiography in some patients. In screening for lung and colon cancer, special post-processing for dedicated analysis of the MDCT dataset is required for comfortable and safe exclusion of early tumour disease. Scanning has already replaced conventional X-ray as the first line diagnostic tool for polytrauma patients in the emergency department.

All these applications require CT image acquisition with highest temporal and spatial resolution of a certain volume within shortest period of time. These special acquisition conditions also entail special considerations about the contrast medium and form of administration. With most modern CT scanners, CT angiography is performed with high iodine delivery rates. Heat sensations, blood volume expansion and contrastinduced nephropathy are less frequent with iso-osmolar contrast media. In many instances, a highly
concentrated (more than 300 mgI/ml) isosmolar contrast media appears to be the optimal contrast agent for MDCT investigations.

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