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Somatom Definition Flash computed tomography (CT) scanner for cardiac and other imaging

Technology name:: SOMATOM Definition Flash computed tomography (CT) scanner
Technology - type(s):: Procedure, Diagnostics
Patient indications:: (1) Patients requiring diagnostic CT imaging, especially:

• Paediatric patients and adult patients for whom breath hold is difficult or impossible.
• Patients who would normally require beta-blockers to slow the heart down to obtain images of a sufficiently high quality.
• Patients with chest pain requiring ‘triple rule out’ of pulmonary embolism, aortic dissection and coronary occlusion.
• Patients requiring brain perfusion studies.
• Patients requiring disease staging for cancer.
• Severely traumatised or unconscious patients.

(2) Patients requiring assessment or diagnosis for cardiovascular conditions, especially:

• Patients requiring diagnostic coronary examination, currently performed by invasive coronary catheterisation.
• Patients requiring cardiac stress perfusion, currently undertaken by nuclear medicine imaging.

According to the company this is the first CT scanner capable of cardiac stress perfusion, which may provide a faster and cheaper alternative to single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) imaging.