MRI and CT highlight Toshiba releases

Toshiba America Medical Systems will debut two new MRI and CTplatforms at the meeting, according to John Ariatti, vice presidentof marketing. In MRI, the 1.5-tesla Visart employs the graphicaluser interface used in the Tustin, CA, vendor's Flexart 0.5-teslaMRI platform, introduced in 1993 (SCAN 11/17/93). Visart, to beshown as a work-in-progress, will also use the latest in radio-frequencycoil technology and new magnet and hardware technology, Ariattisaid.

In CT, Toshiba will exhibit a new top-of-the-line scanner, Aspire.The work-in-progress system is a one-second scanner and uses solid-statedetector technology, Ariatti said. Continuous imaging is a work-in-progresshigh-speed CT technique for Aspire that will prove useful in CT-guidedinterventional studies, according to Ariatti. The technique acquiresimages at six frames per second with almost instantaneous reconstruction.Toshiba will also debut XPress/GX, a new spiral CT scanner witha smaller footprint than XPress/SX.

Max 1000 is a new all-purpose digital system for both angiographyand R/F applications. It features a C-arm integrated with a tiltingtabletop.