Myth 5: QCT will tie up my CT scanner

This may have been a problem back in the 1990’s when CT scanners where slow and 2D QCT spine bone density measurements relied on gantry tilt to orient a single scan slice through the middle of a vertebral body. Nowadays, QCT exams use volumetric scan data so that any spine or hip orientation correction can be dealt with in software. Modern multi-slice helical CT scanners can acquire volumetric QCT hip and spine scan data in 1-10 seconds and so the whole examination takes around 5-10 minutes, about the same as a DXA exam. Because of their fast scan times, these CT machines frequently have spare time available, especially in a rural community hospital setting, where the CT scanner is installed for emergency cases.