Volume CT

Toshiba - New technology allows scanning everyone

An independent survey conducted by the British Society of Cardiac Imaging (BSCI) yielded surprising results: Not only does Toshibas’ Aquilion ONE scanner deliver ultra-low radiation doses for cardiac CT, its next-generation PUREViSION detector also widens the scope of diagnostic cardiac CT. Radiologists agree that this innovative technology allows scanning of patients who previously would never have been considered for CT.

Toshiba’s revolutionary PUREViSION detector makes CT imaging safer for all...

Incredibly 40 percent lower radiation dose
”This data is possibly the most powerful evidence I can present in favor of the Aquilion ONE with the PUREViSION detector,” says Dr. Russell Bull, Consultant Radiologist at the Royal Bournemouth Hospital in Dorset, UK, where the data for this study was collected. The survey, which was conducted over a period of one month, covered an unselected patient population at the Royal Bournemouth Hospital, including those with atrial fibrillation and high body mass index. The radiation dose of around 1mSv for an unselected population is amongst the lowest ever recorded for cardiac CT.

”I would have been happy with a 20 percent reduction in radiation dose compared to the previous survey,” Dr. Bull reported when presenting the BSCI findings. ”In fact there was a 40 percent reduction in dose. This is extraordinary as the Aquilion ONE already stood out as a low-dose scanner in the previous survey.”

Better imaging with high contrast
Adaptive Iterative Dose Reduction in 3D (AIDR 3D) is integrated in the Aquilion ViSION. It minimizes image noise thereby enabling radiologists to lower the radiation dose while maintaining high diagnostic image quality.

In combination with the wide detector array of 16 cm, the Aquilion ViSION provides volumetric scanning with entire organs being captured with perfect temporal uniformity and completely free from z-axis misregistration at a rotation speed of 0.275 seconds.

Dr. Bull summarizes “The image quality has improved even further due to the combination of the PUREViSION detector and AIDR 3D processing. We are seeing better images at 40 percent less radiation dose. With Aquilion ONE we can scan patients we wouldn’t even consider scanning on a conventional scanner.”

4D imaging and more enhancements
With the Aquilion ONE CT scanner time can be added as the fourth dimension paving the way for high-quality dynamic volume applications, or 4D dynamic volume imaging. Each individual set of data, acquired in a dynamic volume, shows an exact moment in time, or the exact phase of contrast enhancement. Also unique to Toshiba, Dr. Bull underlines, is the ability to change the table speed on the fly with Variable Helical Pitch (vHP). This facilitates for example a TAVI scan as it saves time and contrast dose, while reducing radiation dose for the patient.

”We have no problems with patients unable to lie flat or having ridiculously high heart rates or even atrial fibrillation. These can be scanned, perfectly showing coronary arteries at low dose,” he notes. ”This really works. We can scan anyone.”

For more information, please visit www.toshiba-medical.eu

03.03.2015