CT artifacts

CT artifacts are common and can occur for various reasons. Knowledge of these artifacts is important because they can mimic pathology (e.g. partial volume artifact) or can degrade image quality to non-diagnostic levels.

CT artifacts can be classified according to the underlying cause of the artifact.

Patient-based artifacts

• motion artifact
• transient interruption of contrast
• clothing artifact
• jewelry artifact

Physics-based artifacts

• beam hardening 
  • cupping artifact
  • streak and dark bands
  • metal artifact/high-density foreign material artifact
• partial volume averaging
• quantum mottle (noise)
• photon starvation
• aliasing in CT

Hardware-based artifacts

• ring artifact
• tube arcing
• out of field artifact
• air bubble artifact
• Helical and multichannel artifact
  • windmill artifact
  • cone beam effect
  • multiplanar reconstruction (MPR) artifact
    • zebra artifact
    • stair step artifact

See also

• artifacts (general)
• MRI artifacts