[Dual-energy subtraction technique with FCR: clinical application for diagnosis of pulmonary vascular diseases].

The use of dual-energy techniques has already proved to be beneficial in nodule detection and characterization of the calcification in nodules. Other clinical applications, in which simplification of the background might lead to improved results, should be investigated. We evaluated the image quality of pulmonary vessels in the dual-energy techniques with FCR. In visualization of the pulmonary vessels of normal patients, dual-energy soft tissue images were equal or inferior to the original unsubtracted digital images because of increased noise. In the diagnosis of some pulmonary vascular diseases (e.g., Takayasu's arteritis), however, soft tissue images resulted in improved conspicuity of involved sites compared with the unsubtracted images.