Low-dose MDCT: evaluation of the impact of systematic tube current reduction and sparse sampling on the detection of degenerative spine diseases.

• Most common degenerative changes of the spine can be diagnosed in multi-detector CT with 50% of tube current or number of projections. • Sparse-sampled multi-detector CT with only 10% of initial projections still enables correct identification of degenerative changes, in contrast to imaging with 10% of original tube current. • Sparse sampling may be a promising option for distinct lowering of radiation dose, reducing the CTDIvol from 13.8 to 1.4 mGy in the study cohort.