ABSTRACT
A general and practical method for copper-catalyzed cross-coupling of allyl phosphates with stable perfluoroalkylzinc reagents has been developed. The reaction proceeds under mild reaction conditions with high efficiency, good functional group tolerance, and high regio- and stereoselectivities and provides general, straightforward, and useful access to allyl-perfluoroalkyl compounds. Preliminary mechanistic studies reveal that the allyl copper intermediate may be involved in the catalytic cycle.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To determine whether non-linear blending technique for arterial-phase dual-energy abdominal CT angiography (CTA) could improve image quality compared to the linear blending technique and conventional 120 kVp imaging. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study included 118 patients who had accepted dual-energy abdominal CTA in the arterial phase. They were assigned to Sn140/80 kVp protocol (protocol A, n = 40) if body mass index (BMI) < 25 or Sn140/100 kVp protocol (protocol B, n = 41) if BMI ≥ 25. Non-linear blending images and linear blending images with a weighting factor of 0.5 in each protocol were generated and compared with the conventional 120 kVp images (protocol C, n = 37). The abdominal vascular enhancements, image noise, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) and radiation dose were assessed. Statistical analysis was performed using one-way analysis of variance test, independent t test, Mann-Whitney U test, and Kruskal-Wallis test. RESULTS: Mean vascular attenuation, CNR, SNR and subjective image quality score for the non-linear blending images in each protocol were all higher compared to the corresponding linear blending images and 120 kVp images (p values ranging from < 0.001 to 0.007) except for when compared to non-linear blending images for protocol B and 120 kVp images in CNR and SNR. No significant differences were found in image noise among the three kinds of images and the same kind of images in different protocols, but the lowest radiation dose was shown in protocol A. CONCLUSION: Non-linear blending technique of dual-energy CT can improve the image quality of arterial-phase abdominal CTA, especially with the Sn140/80 kVp scanning.
