Investigation of the Correlation between Patient Characteristics and Contrast Enhancement during Hepatic Dynamic CT Scan: Comparison by the Sex

The purpose of this study was to investigate the correlation between patient characteristics and contrast enhancement during the hepatic arterial phase (HAP) and portal venous phase (PVP) CT scanning. All were examined using a hepatic dynamic CT protocol; the scanning parameters were tube voltage 120 kVp, tube current 50 to 600 mA (noise index 8.0 HU), 0.5-s rotation, 5-mm detector row width, 0.813 or 0.825 beam pitch, and the contrast material 600 mg/kg iodine. We calculated contrast enhancement (per gram of iodine: ΔHU/gI) of the abdominal aorta during the HAP and that of the hepatic parenchyma during the PVP. There was a significant difference in the contrast enhancement of the abdominal aorta during the HAP (8.6±2.7 ΔHU/gI) and (9.5±1.7 ΔHU/gI) and that of the hepatic parenchyma during the PVP (1.4±0.5 ΔHU/gI) and (2.9±0.5 ΔHU/gI) between male and female patients (p