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Fig. 8 | European Radiology Experimental

Fig. 8

From: Heavy metal in radiology: how to reliably differentiate between lodged copper and lead bullets using CT numbers

Fig. 8

The Action 4 copper bullet in case 6 was lodged in the dorsal muscles (a). The computed tomography numbers at 120 kVp varied from those that are consistent with copper bullets (b, c: 18,490 HU) to those that are consistent with lead bullets (a, b: 30,600 HU). A high window centre can be used to illustrate unevenly distributed beam hardening along the hyperdense ring at the edge of the bullet (c). Since the beam hardening artifact is pronounced in the diagonal vertical direction of the x-ray beam, the vertebral bone and x-ray scattering may have affected the intensity of beam hardening at the edge of this particular bullet

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