s02b.jpg (8436 bytes)The word in computed tomography for RSNA 2000 is multi-slice. The equipment vendors are gearing up their CT technology to produce clearer images at more rapid speeds to give healthcare providers an enhanced look inside the body.

“Multi-slice for the Masses.” That’s the theme at the Toshiba America Medical Systems (TAMS of Tustin, Calif.) booth this year. The first product to support that theme is Toshiba’s Asteon line, which will offer multi-slice capabilities on its upper-tier systems. Wes Strickland, CT product manager, says attendees will see four-slice production from the Asteon at three price points between $700,000 and $900,000. Currently, there are three U.S. sites up and running.

“We want to offer multi-slice to as many people as we can,” Strickland says. “You can upgrade from single to multi-slice from earlier versions of the Asteon. That requires only a detector change.”

TAMS also will show advancements on its Aquilion line, including improved tube technology and a streamlined user interface.

Siemens Medical Systems Inc. (Iselin, N.J.) plans product introductions at three price points in its CT line.

At the top of the scale are product enhancements for Siemens’ Volume Zoom CT and its Virtuoso. On the Volume Zoom, Siemens will introduce 32-slice per-second as the next step in the system’s evolution. That upgrade — still at least 12 months away from market availability — would quadruple Volume Zoom’s current eight-slice per-second imaging capability. On the Virtuoso, Siemens will enhance its data acquisition by increasing ten-fold its 3D processing capabilities.

In the mid-tier product area, Siemens will announce the availability of dual-slice technology as an upgrade option to its single-slice Emotion CT scanner. The hardware upgrade — available by RSNA — can be done on-site by swapping the detector hardware and data acquisition system.

At the low-end of its CT line, Siemens will launch its new Somatom Smile CT scanner. John Sandstrom, Siemens’ CT product manager, says the Somatom Smile’s price point is less than $250,000 and priced below Siemens’ low-end Esprit CT.

One reason for the low price is that the Somatom Smile has very few parts. The configuration consists of the system, the monitor and the desk. All the computer electronic components all are housed in the CT itself.

“Those parts are colored-coded, so everything from the tube on down can be self-diagnosed by the system,” adds Sandstrom. “If it fails, the system will order the parts itself from the Internet and the customer can replace it.”

Secondly, Siemens will market the Somatom Smile exclusively on the Internet, reducing costs even further.

The company says the unit is designed for family or ENT practices, ICUs and wherever healthcare facilities need a compact CT. The system is designed for a room 10-ft. by 18-ft. (180 sq. ft.) room and installs in less than three hours.

Siemens also will have its newly released HeartView CT technology for cardiac imaging, including soft plaque. Released in October, the new package works on Siemens’ Somatom Volume Zoom and Somatom Volume Access multi-slice CT scanners to perform calcium scoring, non-calcified plaque visualization, detection of stenosis and mediastinal vessel and heart morphology.

HeartView uses an ECG signal to synchronize the acquisition and reconstruction of data to produce nearly motion-free images of the heart. Using a contrast media injection allows visualization of soft plaque and stenosis. The calcium scoring package measures the hard plaque in the coronary arteries in a single-breathhold exam without contrast or dye.

Marconi Medical Systems Inc. (Highland Heights, Ohio) will show a new addition to its MX-8000 product line, bringing to RSNA a dual-slice version of its multi-slice product. Bill Kulp, Marconi’s manager of CT marketing, says the new product has “all the same performance characteristics as the 8000, including fast half-second rotation and fast reconstruction. It just has two slices instead of four.”

The new product — simply referred to as the dual-slice version of the MX-8000 — is available now and has a list price of $750,000.

“It brings multi-slice capabilities to customers who may not have $1 million, but want to get into the advanced applications brought about by multi-slice like cardiac imaging,” says Kulp. “And you can go to multi-slice as a field upgrade.”

Also in the pipeline for Marconi CT is a high-end scanner, which will be designed to offer more than the four slices per rotation currently available. Company officials were not ready to provide detailed information on the product.

“It is a very high-performance scanner and it is going to go a generation beyond the eight slices people are talking about today,” Kulp explains. “It is all fully upgradeable to the next generation.” Kulp expects the new high-end scanner to be available in 2001, but it is not yet FDA-cleared.

Advances in applications are the centerpiece of the GE Medical Systems’ (GEMS of Waukesha, Wis.) CT booth this RSNA, spurred by the advances that faster and multislice scanners are introducing to the healthcare environment.

Bill Radaj, Americas’ marketing manager of CT at GEMS, indicates that the company is building on last year’s applications focus that began with perfusion imaging, advanced vessel analysis and direct 3D with works-in-progress. Among the applications are colonography, neurology, cardiology and lung nodule assessment.

The company also is taking perfusion software to its next level, into some body applications outside the brain, employing it for angiogenesis analysis and tumor detection and analysis.

“In the past, you could not get the coverage of an entire organ system or covering an entire colon, because you have to scan at a pretty far distance, or you could not get the thin slices in chest radiology to do all the analysis that you would like on a nodule,” notes Radaj.

CT product line strengths this year include GEMS’ low-end CTE system; a redesigned X/I product line with added features, including the NX/i multislice scanner, which is debuting at RSNA; and enhancements to LightSpeed, the company’s flagship CT product.

Perfusion imaging, advanced vessel analysis and direct 3D applications from last year’s show have since received FDA approval and are available for delivery. The works-in-progress are pending FDA investigation and approval.

The GEMS CT booth also will tout the company’s new alliance with Varian Medical Systems Inc. (Palo Alto, Calif.). The partnership makes GEMS CT, nuclear medicine and PET imaging equipment available to North American radiation oncology customers exclusively through Varian’s marketing and sales channels. The two companies also will collaborate on information technology and product development to integrate diagnostic and radiation therapy systems for cancer management and patient care.

Philips Medical Systems North America (Shelton, Conn.) will bring its CT Secura and CT Aura to RSNA again this year and focus its message on dose efficiency. Philips officials say multi-slice CT systems inherently have less dose efficiency, but Secura and Aura look to improve that efficiency. The mid-range Aura uses a compact geometry dubbed “EconOmetry” allows lower power requirements with the same functionality. The high-end Secura features built-in productivity enhancements with lower dose.

Philips will provide details on the plans for the Aura and Secura as they head to eight channels and beyond.

A new Windows-based version of Vital Images Inc.’s (Plymouth, Minn.) Vitrea 2, Version 2.2, will be shown at RSNA. The company expects to receive FDA clearance prior to the show.

The software has new analysis capability for allowing tumor staging and tracking, chemotherapy or surgical planning. It also can enhance tumor imaging by segmenting the tumor, showing its borders, and giving volume measurements in 3D. A segmented blood vessel can be analyzed by showing its maximum and minimum diameter, curvature and tightest point of curvature, centerline, multiple planes through the vessel, and cross-sections.

Vincent Argiro, CTO and founder of Vital Images, sees this capability as being useful for surgical planning in the aorta and measuring stenosis in the case of vascular disease. Additionally, the CT colonoscopy protocol had been overhauled to help read exams faster and easier by identifying polyps and showing them in 2D and 3D.

Another improvement to the Vitrea 2 is the Web technology reporting facility, which allows patient notes, still photos and movie sequences to be combined into a report that can be made into a Web page for doctors to consult or study on the hospital’s network.

The big “M” heads to RSNA this year — the M Series replacement CT tube from Dunlee (Aurora, Ill.), that is. Now a wholly owned division of Marconi, Dunlee will launch the first round of its metal replacement tubes at the show. The 3.5 million heat unit (MHU) tubes is designed specifically for Toshiba and Shimadzu Medical Systems (Torrance, Calif.) scanners.

Dunlee General Manager Patrick Fitzgerald and David Kuehn, director of marketing and sales, say the company expects to begin tailoring metal replacement tubes for other customers, such as GEMS. Currently, Dunlee supplies Marconi with all its tubes, including metal and metal-ceramic tubes for advanced platforms and subsecond-scanning applications.

Dunlee plans to make its replacements available to independent service organizations (ISO), multi-vendor service companies and in-house biomedical programs, giving the service companies an option to purchasing replacements from an OEM at list price.

The company also will exhibit glass replacement tubes for the GEMS HiSpeed and ProSpeed scanners. The tubes have been a popular Dunlee product since they represent such a large portion of the installed CT base. Tubes for both models currently are available. end.gif (810 bytes)