Effectiveness of a breath-hold monitoring system in improving the reproducibility of different breath-hold positions in multiphasic CT imaging

This study tests whether the utilization of an electronic breath-hold monitoring device improves breath-hold reproducibility during computed tomographic (CT) scanning. Two cohorts of 40 patients underwent dual-phase abdominal CT scans, either with a breath-hold monitoring device or with the standard breath-holding technique. Two blinded readers measured the differences in diaphragmatic position between phases. There was no statistical difference in diaphragmatic position (P=.14) between the monitored (8.5±11.5 mm) and control (5.6±5.2 mm) cohorts. Ten percent of patients from the monitored cohort had greater than 20 mm of deviation, versus 0%–2.5% for the control cohort. Reproduction of breath-holding position remains challenging, even with a monitoring system.