CT artifacts

Last revised by Lam Van Le on 11 Feb 2025

CT artifacts are common and can occur for various reasons. Knowledge of these artifacts is important because they can mimic pathology (e.g. partial volume artifact) or can degrade image quality to non-diagnostic levels.

CT artifacts can be classified according to the underlying cause of the artifact. 

Patient-based artifacts
Physics-based artifacts
Hardware-based artifacts

See also

Cases and figures

  • Case 1: motion artifact
  • Case 2: ring artifact
  • Case 3: motion and beam-hardening artifact
  • Case 4: beam hardening and ring artifacts
  • Case 5: motion artifact mimicking SDH
  • Case 6: streak artifacts
  • Case 7: partial ring artifact
  • Case 8: incomplete projection artifact
  • Case 9: beam hardening streaking artefact
  • Case 10: beam hardening
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