Description and Overview
The LightSpeed VCT (Volume Computed Tomography) scanner from GE Healthcare allows clinicians to complete extremely faast exams while tailoring image quality, anatomic coverage and scan speeds to meet patient and application demands.
The LightSpeed VCT system can delver up to 73 percent more coverage per second of a given region of interest over previous CT technology. The system's speed dramatically reduces artifacts due to patient motion (either voluntary or involuntary, 
e.g., heart beats). This capability opens new diagnositc possibilities for the clinician. For example, a complete coronary angiogram can be acquired within five heartbeats, and physicians can quickly rule out (or in) the three life-threatening (aortic dissection, pulmonary embolism, coronary artery disease) causes of ER chest pain in one non-invasive scan. The system's speed also makes stroke workups more routine. Additionally, the LightSpeed VCT system achieves all this with a significant reduction in radiation to the patient by removing from the X-ray beam "scatter radiation" or electrons that do not contribute to the image itself. LightSpeed VCT's features also allow physicians to perform other studies more efficiently, including those for neurology, oncology, trauma and angiography. Along with new procedures, doctors have the flexibility to customize protocols for each unique patient, therby enhancing productivity and image quality.
GE LightSpeed VCT was introduced in 2004 after intensive research into tube and detector technology. The innovations that grew from this research have revolutionized CT technology, and with it, the diagnostic possibilities it represents.
LightSpeed VCT is the latest in the GE family of LightSpeed scanners. It demonstrates CT imaging quality in three dimensions; microVoxel imaging delivers routinely superior image quality in the axial, coronal and sagittal planes. This new frontier in imaging allows for superb sub-millimeter isotropic resolution that facilitates the imaging of small structures including small tortuos vessels, fine bony structures and coronary arteries.
LightSpeed VCT customers typically conduct the following procedures:
- Cardiac and coronary vessel analysis
- Coronary artery calcification scoring
- Angiography studies
- Trauma/emergency room procedures
- Stroke assessment
- Oncology care
- Pulmonary emboli
- Inner ear ailments
- Spinal injuries
- Abdominal injuries
- Pediatric assessments
- Kidney exams
- Liver exams
- Lung exams
Patient benefits
- Reduced radiation dose
- Faster, more accurate scanning means faster patient exams
- Breathing lights help patients remain motionless during scans
- Less time needed for breath-holds, less patient stress
- Greater flexibility (e.g., can obtain thicker or thinner slices without rescanning)
- Full CT angiography coverage
- Better cross sectional displays and 3D images
- Captures the heart images in a single breath-hold