Introduction: Positioning of the patient at CT has high influence on the proper operation of AEC system at computed tomography. Off-centering in vertical line cause a change in the size of the object on localizer, which have an effect on AEC system and leads to incorrect exposition and deviation in patient dose and image quality. Purpose: Our purpose is to determine the impact of vertical mis-centering on dose exposure of the object and image quality. Methods: Measurements were taken with the 64-MDCT CT scanner Siemens Somatom definition at the Institute of Radiology in University Medical Centre Ljubljana. For scanning we used whole body phantom labelled PBU 60 and a clinical protocol for upper abdomen CT. Phantom positions varried from 4,95 cm above the isocenter to 15 cm below in 1 cm steps. We used commercial radiation dose-monitoring software for analyzing and recording CTDIVOL data and program ImageJ for measure the standard deviation of Housfield units on four different anatomical places on the same picture, every 1 cm step. All the statistics analyses were performed in the SPSS 21.0. programme. Results: The results have shown a linear relation between the size of the object on localizer and vertical mis-centering of the phantom. The range of CTDIVOL values were for 10% higher at 5 cm above the isocenter and 10 % lower at 15 cm below the isocenter. If CTDIVOL value increase, the standard deviation of Housfield units decrease and opposite if CTDIVOL value decrease, the standard deviation of Housfield units on the picture increase. Discussion and conclusion: With the statistic analyses we proven that the central plate with the phantom placed above the isocenter leads to the increase of diameter of the phantom on the localizer and the radiation dose and decrease of the amount of the noise on the reconstructive image. If the central plate with the phantom is placed below the isocenter the diameter of the phantom and the radiation dose diminish, but the amount of the noise on the picture rises.
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