Marconi Medical Systems
A new dual-slice version of Marconi's Mx-8000 multislice scanner will highlight the Cleveland company's booth. The scanner will create a new price point for Mx-8000, and will supersede the company's Mx-Twin dual-slice scanner, first introduced in 1992.
Marconi continues to make investments for the flagship version of Mx-8000, however. The company will display a new work-in-progress model of the system that uses a new large-area detector technology that Marconi is calling Infinite Detector, according to Bill Kulp, manager of CT marketing. Infinite Detectors are 20% wider than standard detectors, and enable Mx-8000 to acquire more data in less time, he said. An Mx-8000 Infinite Detector can conduct a neuro CT angiography study in less than six seconds with thin slices. Marconi is working on FDA clearance for the Infinite Detector version, and shipments are expected in 2002.
The company will also showcase multislice clinical results. A workstation demo will feature the use of Mx-8000 in a wide variety of cardiac applications, including cardiac scoring and imaging, fly-throughs of the coronary arteries, and functional cardiac studies like wall motion and ejection fraction calculation. Stroke assessment will also be another featured application, Kulp said.
In the interventional realm, Marconi will display its dual-slice and multislice scanners with the company's interventional products, including its Fluoro-Assisted CT (FACTS) digital fluoro module and PinPoint stereotactic arm.
Marconi has developed a new version of its AcQsim CT simulator that uses an 85-cm bore, as compared to 60-cm or 70-cm bores on conventional scanners. Marconi hopes the new version of AcQsim will be attractive to radiation therapy sites still using x-ray simulators, Kulp said.
Shimadzu Medical Systems
Shimadzu has begun commercial shipments of its first subsecond CT scanner, SCT-7800T, which was displayed as a work-in-progress at last year's RSNA show. The single-slice system comes in two versions, one with a 1-second rotation speed and the other with a 0.75-second rotation speed.
Two key applications that SCT-7800T users can perform are virtual endoscopy and CT fluoroscopy, according to Don Karle, director of marketing at the Torrance, CA, company. All data reconstruction is performed at the main operator's console, enabling the reconstruction of an entire data set in less than five minutes.
Siemens Medical Systems
The German vendor's CT division is ramping up its e-commerce efforts with the introduction of a new scanner that can be purchased only online. Somatom Smile is an economy-range product with plug-and-play installation, according to the company.
Siemens will also show new capabilities for its Somatom Emotion line, first introduced at last year's RSNA conference. The company is now offering multislice scanning on the 0.8-second scanner, which occupies the middle range of Siemens' product line.
Toshiba America Medical Systems
Toshiba is bringing multislice CT scanning to the more affordable end of the mid-tier range with Asteion, the companion to Toshiba's premium Aquilion system. Asteion features a 0.75-second scanning time -- not quite as fast as the half-second speeds found on Aquilion, but like the more expensive system Asteion employs the company's four-slice acquisition technique. Other specifications on Asteion include a 4-million-heat-unit x-ray tube and a 48-kW x-ray generator, according to John Zimmer, vice president of marketing at Toshiba.
The Tustin, CA, company will emphasize its scanners' ability to collect data in what Toshiba calls isotropic voxels. By collecting data at a 0.5-mm slice thickness setting with the patient table moving at half-second intervals, Toshiba scanners collect voxels that measure 0.5 x 0.5 mm. This eliminates distortion, Zimmer said, and enables the production of images with finer detail.
By Brian Casey
AuntMinnie.com staff writer
November 16, 2000
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