Our Perfectly Attuned 
CT Imaging Chain

Empowering low-dose precision medicine for everyone, everywhere

If you use low kV imaging and high-power technology, then you already know the key major benefit – 
producing high quality images with enhanced low-contrast resolution, helping you reduce radiation and contrast media dose. The basis for low kV imaging is the mass attenuation coefficient, which depends on the chemical composition and density of a material. In the past, it was not possible to keep image quality constant at all kV levels, as the X-ray tubes were not powerful enough to produce sufficient tube current (mA) at low kV levels.

Today, however, all our CT scanners from the SOMATOM® and NAEOTOM® lines are equipped with X-ray tubes that are powerful enough to produce high mA at low kV. 

This gives you the following added benefits:

• Low kV imaging is no longer limited to small-sized patients – that includes even challenging bariatric cases. 
• The cost per examination is reduced without excluding kidney-impaired patients – with a solution that helps you minimize the need for contrast media. 
• With technology like CARE kV and CARE keV, system automatically selects the tube voltage for multiple clinical applications across wide range of kV settings.
• For NAEOTOM system contrast enhancement can also be achieved at any kV levels through the use of monoenergetic keV levels.

These benefits are the reason that low kV imaging and high-power technology make up an essential part of our CT imaging chain. In combination with intelligent technology – like CARE kV – low-dose CT imaging has become easier for patients of all sizes, providing invaluable diagnostic information. 

See the difference for yourself by checking out the clinical examples at the end of the page.

Thin-slice technology gives our CT imaging chain an extra edge by providing thin rows over the entire detector without collimating the selection. Acquiring these sub-mm slices does not compromise the detector coverage, scan speed, or time – providing you with optimal CT scan image processing. This process can be found in both of our CT imaging families: in scanners which use traditional energy integrating detectors like SOMATOM and NAEOTOM Alpha®, the world’s first photon-counting CT.

Our Stellar detector can be found in our SOMATOM fleet. It is state-of-the-art and a major player in our CT imaging chain when it comes to high-resolution. By combining photodiodes and ADCs in one ASIC, the Stellar detector has immediate benefits in traditional CT imaging:

• The Stellar detector uses approximately 70% less power and dissipates less heat than conventional detectors.
• It enables TrueSignal technology for a substantial reduction in electronic noise.
• It provides up to 3x more range than a conventional detector (up to 102 dB) thanks to HiDynamics for differentiating grey and white matter as well as lesion detection.
• It has an increased channel density of 17% for a finer sampling of small details – which is especially important for those bony structures thanks to thin-slice technology.

With NAEOTOM Alpha, the world’s first photon-counting CT scanner, CT images are processed quite differently. This technology signifies a quantum leap from conventional, energy-integrating CT detectors.

• By converting photons directly into electrical impulses — and bypassing the intermediate step of scintillation light — the septa used to avoid optical cross talk between neighboring pixels become redundant and are therefore removed. This optimizes the dose efficiency of the detector, especially in ultra-high resolution CT imaging.
• As photon-counting detectors measure electrical impulses instead of the light impulses created through scintillation, these detectors are able to clearly distinguish between signals created by X-ray photons-, and electronic noise — and subsequently eliminate the latter.

Compared to a high-end conventional CT scanner, the QuantaMax detector produces roughly ten times as much raw data with the same detector area. The result is highly detailed clinical images — with a slice thickness of as low as 0.2 mm, containing spectral results for every exam, free of electronic noise, and with higher contrast-to-noise ratio. This enables unprecedented clinical insights.

See specific examples at the clinical images section at the end of the page.