Table 1: Inclusion and exclusion criteria for study selection.
Inclusion criteria |
Exclusion criteria |
Rationale |
All publications to date |
n/a |
To include all relevant studies |
Full-text articles in English language |
Articles not written in English language |
Difficulty in comprehension |
Prospective, retrospective studies and clinical trials |
Case reports, reviews, meta-analyses |
To include studies with original results only |
Patients suspected of PE undergoing CTPA |
Patients with other than PE pulmonary conditions |
To assess image quality of PA |
Studies comparing image quality of a CTPA protocol with reduced ICM dose to a standard CTPA protocol, employing either qualitative or quantitative image evaluation, or both |
Non comparative studies, phantom studies, studies not assessing image quality for different ICM doses |
This review aims to summarize the findings of comparative studies on CTPA image quality |
Studies comparing image quality between CTPA protocols with various reduced ICM doses, employing either qualitative or quantitative image evaluation, or both |
Non comparative studies, phantom studies, studies not assessing image quality for different ICM doses |
This review aims to summarize the findings of comparative studies on CTPA image quality |