Canon Medical won FDA clearance for its top-end Aquilion Precision CT scanner. The company calls it the world’s first “Ultra-High Resolution CT” system because it’s capable of resolving objects as small as 150 microns, something commonly only available in cath labs.
This level of imaging is possible thanks to a new X-ray tube that has the smallest focal spot in the industry, as well as a detector that has smaller, more densely packed pixels than previous systems. A comparison can be made between 1080p and 4K televisions in terms of pixel density. The software that reconstructs the images has also been optimized to produce a truer picture of the internal anatomy.
Here are some more technical details about the Aquilion Precision according to Canon:
A comparison of detector sample pixel sizes
The Aquilion Precision CT system features dose efficiency with detector channels that are only 0.25 mm thick. This, combined with substantial improvements in scintillator quantum efficiency, detector circuitry and other DAS components, results in a dose-efficient detector with ultra-high resolution capabilities. The system features resolution never before seen in CT imaging with the industry’s smallest Focal Spot Tube at 0.4 mm x 0.5 mm and the industry’s first routine 1024 x 1024 Reconstruction Matrix.
Product page: Aquilion Precision…
More about the development of Aquilion Precision…