Toshiba has announced that all new, and already installed, Aquilion One, Premium and Prime scanners, should be entitled to get the AIDR 3D algorithm to reduce radiation dose exposure an noise in imaging procedures without the need for substantial upgrade costs.
According to the company, clinical results show that AIDR 3D substantially reduces noise, while preserving sharp details, providing “natural looking” images. Reconstruction performed with AIDR 3D permits substantial dose reduction when compared to scans performed with traditional filtered back projection (FBP) techniques. The AIDR 3D algorithm is designed to work in both the raw data and reconstruction domains and optimises image quality for each particular body region.
As patients come in all shapes and sizes, automatic exposure control systems have proven to be very useful to maintain diagnostic image quality at a radiation dose suitable for each patient. It is therefore imperative that exposure control systems automatically react to dose reduction technology where made available to the customer.
“When Toshiba installed AIDR 3D, our staff initially looked critically at the image quality for all type of scans. We may say that we are very happy with the image quality and surprised by the low dose levels. Follow-up studies, when compared to previous scans, already clearly demonstrated the impact of AIDR 3D” said Alain Blum-Moyse, head of Radiology CHU Nancy, France.
“Noise is reduced dramatically. However this new technology is especially good in artifact suppression (streaks, beam-hardening, etc.). With AIDR 3D integrated in the SUREExposure 3D we were able to achieve a dose reduction by up to 75% by the same standard deviation for noise. But we found in some studies, with the same standard deviation the image quality was so good, we could increase the standard deviation even further, resulting in an even higher average dose reduction.”
Key features of AIDR 3D
- Full integration in scan protocols for improved workflow
- Dose reduction in clinical setting by up to 75%
- Minimal penalty in reconstruction times
- Noise reduction and improved spatial resolution
Toshiba plans to start the roll-out in January 2012 and strives to have this completed by April 2012.
