Will a New Spectral CT Imaging Suite Reinvent Interventional Radiology?

Promoting increased efficiency for computed tomography (CT) imaging of oncology, stroke and trauma patients, Philips has launched the Spectral Angio CT Suite. Combining the Spectral CT 7500 system and the Azurion image-guided therapy system with FlexArm, the integrated hybrid platform gives interventional radiologists immediate access to the technologies in one room.

Facilitating image-guided therapy for complex procedures, Azurion with FlexArm integrates imaging modalities with specialized therapeutic devices, according to Philips. The company noted that the Spectral CT 7500 system enables more targeted minimally invasive procedures with enhanced detection and quantification of lesions.

“By combining the best of our award-winning modalities into a single suite, we aim to unlock new treatment approaches that could benefit both patients and their physicians,” noted Karim Boussebaa, general manager of Image Guided Therapy Systems at Philips.

Spectral CT imaging may also have potential advantages over conventional CT with guidance for lung tumor biopsies, according to Filippo Piacentino, MD, who will be speaking about this topic at the upcoming Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiological Society of Europe Annual Meeting (CIRSE 2022), which will be held September 10-14 in Barcelona, Spain.

“With conventional CT, large masses may appear as a largely uniform mass, making highly targeted biopsy difficult,” noted Filippo Piacentino, MD, an interventional radiologist, who is affiliated with the University of Insubria in Varese, Italy. “By fusing images from Philip’s spectral CT that are color-coded based on the effective atomic number of tissues and provide a large amount of additional information, we can now investigate the possibility of obtaining better defined biopsy targets with a fewer number of inconclusive biopsies.”

In the hope of reducing localized tumor recurrence after thermal ablation procedures, Philips said it will also be collaborating with the University of Pennsylvania to examine the potential of spectral CT to allow real-time temperature mapping of tissues during procedures.