TORONTO - Multimodality vendor Philips Medical Systems has added a 64-slice CT capability to its PET/CT and SPECT/CT systems. The company made the announcement at this week's Society of Nuclear Medicine (SNM) meeting.
Philips will be making both its Gemini PET/CT and Precedence SPECT/CT lines available with a 64-slice option based on the company's Brilliance CT scanner. Previously, Gemini was available in six-, 10-, and 16-slice configurations, while Precedence came in six- and 16-slice models.
The new versions are targeted at cardiac applications, and in its SNM booth Philips is demonstrating cardiac CT angiography images overlaid on functional PET and SPECT studies. The higher slice count will enable users to cut acquisition times down to six seconds for a cardiac scan, compared to 14-16 seconds with a 16-slice scanner. This can be an important benefit when imaging sick patients, according to Ian Farmer, general manager of the company's nuclear medicine division.
Philips expects the 64-slice models to be available in mid-2006. Philips recently began shipping the 16-slice version of Precedence and now has three units installed in the U.S., Farmer said, while Gemini GXL, the newest version of the Gemini platform, starting shipping this month.
Philips is also demonstrating an upgrade to the attenuation correction package found on the company's CardioMD dedicated cardiac gamma camera. CardioMD is now shipping with the VantagePro attenuation correction add-on found on the company's larger SPECT cameras. The package uses a gadolinium-153 source that travels in front of the detector head. Philips adapted VantagePro for CardioMD's smaller field-of-view by adding a software algorithm to compensate for truncation artifacts, Farmer said.
By AuntMinnie.com staff writers
June 20, 2005
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