Harefield Hospital, part of Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Foundation Trust, recently held an opening ceremony to unveil the installation of a Symbia T16 TruePoint SPECT•CT from Siemens Healthcare.
Former England cricket captain, Chris Cowdrey, unveiled the new system, which is located in the nuclear medicine department. The system is handling a mixed imaging workload of cardiac and non-cardiac scanning, and is proving particularly helpful in determining the extent of disease in many clinical settings by combining the best of functional and anatomical imaging. The Symbia T16 was selected to bolster the hospital’s imaging capabilities and is proving a user-friendly addition to its existing systems.
The Symbia TruePoint SPECT•CT system combines variable-angle dual detector SPECT with 16-slice CT for rapid, accurate attenuation correction and precise localisation. It offers expanded coverage of whole-body CT applications, advanced neurology applications and cardiology scanning with calcium scoring in 15-20 seconds. Designed with patient comfort in mind, it features a low bed and integrated arm and head rests for easy patient positioning. Its 70cm wide bore can accommodate claustrophobic and bariatric patients, or those with limited mobility.
“We selected the Symbia T16 because it offered excellent fused functional and anatomical imaging and suited our budget,” said Suzie Hinton-Taylor, superintendent radiographer at Harefield Hospital.
Professor Richard Underwood, Professor of cardiac imaging at Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Foundation Trust, added: “We are impressed with the camera’s potential to provide high-quality myocardial perfusion scintigrams with effective SPECT attenuation correction using the CT component. The ability to assess coronary calcium alongside myocardial perfusion is also of value in assessing patients with symptoms of possible coronary artery disease.”
