METHODS: A 160-mm-diameter PLA head CTDI phantom with five dosimetry holes was fabricated using fused deposition modeling. Its elemental composition, density, effective atomic number, electron density, Hounsfield units (HU), and CT dosimetry parameters were characterized. Measurements were performed on 128-slice Ingenuity Philips and GE Discovery scanners, at 80, 120, and 140 kV. CTDI was measured at two different times and then compared with PMMA.
RESULTS: PLA showed properties close to PMMA, with differences of 5.08% in density, -0.015% in effective atomic number, and -4.46% in electron density. PLA HU values were lower than PMMA, ranging from 22.5 to 45.3 HU on Philips and 25.1-49.1 HU on GE. CTDIvol deviations between PLA and PMMA ranged from -9.00% to -2.82% in November 2025 and from -5.78% to -3.83% in June 2026. These deviations remained within <10%, which was generally considered acceptable for comparative phantom-based CT dosimetry.
CONCLUSION: The PLA CTDI phantom showed good effective atomic number, electron density, and dosimetric agreement with the standard PMMA phantom across two CT systems and two measurement time points.
IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: 3D-printed PLA CTDI phantom could offer a practical, low-cost complementary tool for comparative CTDI measurement, education, protocol optimization, and quality assurance.
METHOD: Twelve endurance male runners [age 25 ± 3 years; peak aerobic capacity ([Formula: see text]O2peak) 57.6 ± 3.6 mL.kg-1.min-1] completed three time-to-exhaustion (TTE) trials at ~ 70% [Formula: see text]O2peak while swilling 25 ml of a 6% carbohydrate (CHO) or taste-matched placebo (PLA) as well as no mouth rinse performed in the control (CON) trial.
RESULTS: TTE performance was significantly longer in both CHO and PLA trials when compared with the CON trial (54.7 ± 5.4 and 53.6 ± 5.1 vs. 48.4 ± 3.6 min, respectively; p 0.05). Similarly, plasma lactate and glucose as well as exercise heart rate were not influenced by the trials.
CONCLUSIONS: The present study demonstrates that mouth rinsing, whether carbohydrate or placebo, provides an ergogenic benefit to running endurance when compared to CON in a heat stress environment. Nevertheless, the results do not support the notion that rinsing a carbohydrate solution provides a greater advantage as previously described among non-heat acclimated individuals within a temperate condition.