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The Shapiro Cardiovascular Center will be home to Toshiba’s AquilionONE, which, at 320 slices, is the most powerful computed tomography scanner in its class. Since the scanner was temporarily installed in Nuclear Medicine on L1 in November, a group of BWHers has been studying the scanner to evaluate its imaging quality and radiation doses.
“Our work confirmed that the image quality is outstanding, and the radiation doses to patients are low,” said Frank J. Rybicki, MD, PhD, director of Cardiac CT.
Rybicki and his team completed a peer reviewed study in 40 consecutive patients who underwent coronary CT angiography on the scanner, which can image the heart in a single beat for most patients. They found that the scanner reduces radiation doses by eliminating helical overlap because it enables whole-heart coverage. Excellent image quality was achieved in nearly 90 percent of coronary artery segments imaged with 320-detector row CT. The 320-CT scan captures the heart with one rotation of its central, X-ray emitting gantry.
The group published its findings in the International Journal of Cardiovascular Imaging.
“We will continue to work on lowering contrast and radiation dose while maintaining image quality,” Rybicki said.
3D Volume rendered single heart beat 320-detector row cardiac CT in a patient with no coronary artery disease. This image was acquired with prospective ECG-gating, limiting patient radiation to levels no greater than coronary catheterization.