Toshiba boosts CT scanning to maximum performance
The new Aquilion ONE ViSION is the widest, fastest, thinnest-slice CT ever built, capable to pushing both anatomical and functional studies to new levels.
The vision behind the newest most advanced CT ever built for clinical practice is the power to see right away.
"Increasingly we are seeing radiologists move from reading CT scans to spot disease to functional CT studies that help them understand the mechanism of disease," said Tim Nicholson, Senior Manager CT Development with Toshiba.
In functional exams, such as perfusion studies, the width of the detector, the speed of the gantry rotation and the fine detail of the image acquisition become critical.
"The CT needs to be so powerful that the radiologists can see right away in a single scan the patient's condition," he said.
At RSNA 2012 Toshiba introduced the next generation Aquilion ONE ViSION Edition with the muscle and the intelligence to deliver a maximum performance in CT scans.
The hardware reaches the limits in the industry with a 100 kw generator and 320 detector rows completing a scan at a startling 0.275 seconds while covering 16 cm in a single rotation. The result is also record-breaking with 640 unique slices of 500 microns each, the thinnest in medical imaging.
For clinical applications this engineering means the Aquilion ONE ViSION Edition is capable of imaging the entire brain, or the entire heart in a single rotation. Where patients are injected with a contrast agent to illuminate vasculature, the new scanner assures a complete study can be done right the first time, said Nicholson, avoiding the need for additional injections and additional radiation.
Toshiba has also installed a third-generation of its AIDR 3D iterative dose reconstruction software, incorporating significant system enhancements by reducing radiation dose compared with conventional scanning.
Toshiba also super-sized the access to the scanner with a 78 cm bore and a 47-inch wide table capable of supporting 660 pounds to accommodate larger patients.
In Europe the Aquilion ONE ViSION Edition has been installed at the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre in the Netherlands and will soon be installed at the Rigshospitalet in Denmark.
28.11.2012
