Toshiba ships 6.5-MHU CT x-ray tube

Toshiba America Medical Systems has begun shipments of a 6.5-million-heat-unit(MHU) x-ray tube for its Xpress/SX line of CT scanners. The Tustin,CA, vendor believes the tube has the highest heat-unit capacityof any CT x-ray tube on the market.

Toshiba displayed the 6.5-MHU tube as a work-in-progress atlast year's Radiological Society of North America meeting. Thevendor began shipping the tube in June and has installed threein the U.S., two in Canada and several in Japan. It is availableas an option on new Xpress/SX scanners and as an upgrade optionfor Xpress/SX systems in the field. A 3.5-MHU tube is offeredstandard on Xpress/SX.

High-heat-unit tubes are particularly useful for helical CTscanning because they enable longer scanning times with less tubestrain. They also don't need to be changed as frequently as lowercapacity tubes, according to vice president of marketing JohnAriatti.

"The bottom line is that the tube lasts longer so thereis less down time over the life of the system," Ariatti said.