CHICAGO — IQon Elite Spectral CT, the world’s first and only spectral CT system, was on full display in the Philips booth at this year’s Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) annual conference, alongside IntelliSpace Portal 10 (ISP 10), the latest addition of the OEM’s advanced visualization and quantification platform.

The scanner uses spectral data to create images that provide enhanced and additional data for radiologists to view in ISP 10, equipped with a variety of spectral applications, to make more confident and certain diagnoses.

“The IQon Elite Spectral CT does all the scanning and all the reconstruction, and then we tie it to the ISP, which is our advanced visualization tool to take that data and allow you to analyze it and review it as you need,” Eric L. Stevenson, director of product management for computed tomography at Philips, told HCB News.
IQon Elite consists of an X-ray tube source that provides 120-140 kilovolts. Within its NanoPanel prism detector, high and low energies are separated at the same time and space, enabling the creation of matching spectral and conventional images simultaneously, with no interpretation of data.

The scanner is equipped with faster reconstruction speeds and better visualization of bone marrow pathology for greater diagnostic confidence, which is furthered by its ability to estimate electron density for enhanced tissue characterization. It has a radiation therapy planning couch and a bariatric table for scanning larger patients with increased positioning control.

Reconstruction speeds enable scanning of up to 200 patients within a 16-hour period with images reconstructed in the same time frame.

Viewed on ISP 10, images can be analyzed with spectral applications, such as spectral enhanced vascular anatomy, to provide enhancements to support the radiologist in making an accurate diagnosis, especially regarding the reading and follow-up of complex oncology cases.

The platform also features DynaCAD Prostate and Breast solutions, integrated through collaboration with InVivo to reduce processing time, and connects to PACS through a simple interface.

“For radiologists that do all of their reviewing on PACS, they’re able to not change their process and not need to open up another software system,” Stevenson said. “We actually allow them to access all of that spectral data on that PACS system.”

With each application, results are saved and can be loaded into ISP 10’s new 3-D modeling application. Following additional changes made through the app, models can be previewed and then expedited for printing with four different output formats and ranges of colors, textures and materials to choose.

The models are printed by 3D Systems and Stratasys, as per agreements made with Philips, with the finished products used for a variety of purposes such as surgical planning or teaching.

IQon Elite is expected to greatly benefit the needs of emergency and trauma departments. It also, along with ISP 10, is meant to provide needed support to the field of oncology.

“The goal of this all is that through better data, the radiologist can get to a more confident diagnosis quicker,” Stevenson said.

Both iQon Elite and ISP 10 are due for release sometime this month.

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