Aquilion ONE Second Generation Launches Advanced Features

Reduced radiation dose, less contrast agent, speedier delivery of results, improved imaging and increased versatility sum up the advantages found on the Aquilion ONE next generation CT scanner from Toshiba Medical systems (Tokyo, Japan). The company presented the latest features including ^SURESubstraction Lung and Single-Energy Metal Artifact Reduction (SEMAR) at this year’s European Congress Radiology (ECR) meeting.

Joerg Schlegel, Senior Manager, Product Marketing Toshiba discussed the new additions to Aquilion ONE second generation scanner with Medical Imaging International: “Seven years ago we introduced the first version of a volumetric scanner that could acquire a whole organ in a single rotation, but now this second generation outfit has better performance.”

At the ECR 2014, Toshiba launched SEMAR for the first time globally. “This feature enables the visualization of soft tissue around implant, for example hip and knee implants,” explained Mr. Schlegel.

“This is highly significant because the population is aging and many more implants are being conducted making it difficult to evaluate what is going on in tissue around the implant,” he added.

Metal artifacts cause distortions but with SEMAR these distortions are removed from the image providing enhanced visibility of the soft tissue revealing misaligned implants, pseudo-tumors or damage to the implant.

Aquilion ONE has held one of the leading positions in the CT scanner market since its launch in 2007. However, over time Toshiba has worked with customers to refine the product to the latest high specification system. Flexibility and performance take pride of place with the next generation Aquilion ONE with new innovations like Adaptive Diagnostics, including Dual Energy raw data analysis, Variable Helical Pitch, and SEMAR.

Another feature, ^SURESubtraction Lung, was presented for the first time at the ECR. It runs on Toshiba’s Adaptive Diagnostics software. ^SURESubstraction Lung technology provides iodine maps of the lung parenchyma with exceptional high contrast-to-noise ratio. “There is a very high contrast-to-noise ratio allowing us to see defects in lung perfusion. This color-coded iodine method is more sensitive than methods currently on the market providing fantastic clinical results,” commented Mr. Schlegel.

The ^SURESubstraction algorithm has application in other body parts too including subtraction of the skull and medical implants in brain scans; a neck subtraction deformable registration algorithm creates high-resolution images freed of bone structures; and an ortho subtraction ensures accurate subtraction of skeletal structures and calcified plaques.

A study by Mathias Prokop, professor of radiology at Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands showed that for small perfusion defects, ^SURESubtraction Lung was far more sensitive.

“This new feature has greatly improved signal and higher spatial resolution compared to iodine maps derived from dual energy acquisitions,” he noted. “^SURESubtraction Lung shows perfusion defects and thus provides direct insight in the effect of embolism on lung perfusion. Clinicians find small emboli they could have missed oth¬erwise.”

“It also has enormous unexplored potential, for example with regard to diagnosing the activity of inter¬stitial lung disease, or evaluating the interaction between aeration and perfusion in diseases like emphysema or small airway disease.”

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