ARTICLE SUMMARY:
With photon counting CT, Siemens Healthineers has ushered in a new era of high-resolution, reduced-radiation CT imaging. The first mover in this revolutionary imaging space is creating an unassailable lead, with two and a half years of customer experience, a very specific manufacturing process, and strategies for staying close to users.
Computed tomography (CT) scans are ubiquitously used to noninvasively diagnose stroke, traumatic injuries, lung cancer, cardiovascular disease, and almost any other condition you can think of. That modality is now even more powerful with the advent of photon counting CT (PCCT), thanks to the US introduction by Siemens Healthineers of the NAEOTOM Alpha in November 2021. Siemens was the first company to offer PCCT, although practically every imaging company is working on its own PCCT program (among a list that includes Samsung’s NeuroLogica division, which received FDA clearance for its OmniTom Elite in 2022, and Philips Healthcare, GE Healthcare, and Canon Medical, which are conducting clinical studies on this technology).