Siemens Healthineers has installed the U.K.'s first photon-counting CT scanner at the University of Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital to support clinical services and research.
The new photon-counting CT scanner, called Naeotom Alpha, is also the first in the world to sit within a hybrid catheterization laboratory, according to company and university representatives.
The system utilizes cadmium telluride crystals, a new type of detector material, and it converts x-ray photons directly into electrical signals, which overcomes the loss of information encountered in conventional CT.
The scanner can also achieve up to 45% radiation dose reductions for ultra-high resolution and obtain valuable new clinical information to support earlier diagnoses, representatives said.
"This is the first system in the U.K. and the first in the world within a hybrid setting, making us pioneers for a technology that will soon help transform diagnostic provision across the NHS," said Dr. Charalambos Antoniades, British Heart Foundation chair of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Oxford and director of the Oxford Acute Vascular Imaging Centre (AVIC).
The photon-counting CT scanner replaces an existing MRI scanner at the AVIC that required up to an hour to complete a single cardiac study, Antoniades said. Clinicians can now expect to reduce cardiac scanning time to just a few minutes, which will enable the expansion of services to include vascular imaging for acute patients and the provision of a routine cardiac CT service, he added.
