Review and recommendations for physics testing of x-ray computed tomography: CSMPT CT Task Group report

The purpose of this report is to review and recommend physics testing of x-ray computed tomography (CT) systems, made by the CT task group of the Chinese Society of Medical Physics, Taipei. Twelve testing items were proposed in five categories. For each item, purpose, equipment, procedure and criteria were summarized. The first category is system safety evaluation. The second is mechanical and geometric assessment, including alignment of table to gantry, slice positioning accuracy and gantry tile accuracy. The third is image quality assessment, including slice thickness accuracy, CT number accuracy and linearity, evaluation of image uniformity, noise, and artifact, spatial resolution and low contrast detectability. The fourth is dose assessment, including dosimetry and radiation width. The final category is image display device evaluation.