South London Healthcare NHS Trust has installed Somatom Definition AS from Siemens Healthcare at Queen Mary’s Hospital Sidcup, for a range of general scanning needs, particularly oncology. The 64-slice CT is adaptable to the patient, the clinician and the task at hand.

The installation has replaced a 4-slice system, also from Siemens, as the sole CT facility on site. The adaptable nature of the Definition AS makes it ideal for general scans performed on a daily basis and also for the wide variety of patients undergoing scans.

The Definition AS has a high temporal resolution of up to 165ms, combined with fast coverage at 64 slices per rotation, delivering crystal-clear images, free of movement artifacts and showing the finest anatomical details for all examinations.

The system has minimal space requirements and a large 78cm bore that easily accommodates claustrophobic or obese patients. The table can also hold a weight of up to 230kg. Patient dose is kept to a minimum via Siemens’ Adaptive Dose Shield that blocks pre and post spiral dose either side of the scan range for a more patient-friendly scan.

Bradley Smith, services manager of radiology at Queen Mary’s Hospital Sidcup, said: “The main benefits of the Definition AS are its speed and ease-of-use. Training has also been straightforward as staff are already comfortable with Siemens’ systems. All our out-of-hours scans are carried out by on-call staff so it is important that they are familiar with the interface and controls.

“Furthermore, its design advantages have made a real difference, for example the big table limit means we can get larger people through the system and patients can easily be placed in scanning focus.”

Clive West, regional sales and corporate business manager at Siemens Healthcare, said: “The adaptable Definition AS is ideally suited to be the sole CT system on site at Queen Mary’s Hospital Sidcup. Its speed and image quality coupled with an accommodating design mean it is able to meet a vast scope of scanning requirements while improving the patient experience.”