Dose Reduced by 70 Percent with New CT Scanner

GE Healthcare has launched its new LightSpeed VCT XT, the industry’s first CT scanner that maintains high image quality while reducing a patient’s radiation exposure by up to 70 percent for diagnostic cardiac scans.

Capable of capturing images of the heart and coronary arteries in as few as five heartbeats, LightSpeed VCT XT now includes hardware and enhanced applications that will allow users to add the clinical value of volume CT by providing new capabilities for imaging the heart, head and other body parts.

LightSpeed VCT XT is the first multislice scanner capable of performing CT angiographic (CTA) studies where the table moves from one location to the next to cover the entire volume of the patient’s heart, a mode of scanning called step-and-shoot. The system tracks a patient’s heart rate in real time so the X-ray and acquisition time is driven by each individual patient, enabling clinicians to obtain high-quality images with a very low dose exposure.