Siemens leaves Vietnam in good health

Siemens recently installed the first dual source computed tomography scanner in Vietnam.

Right before the Lunar New Year 2012, the first Siemens’ SOMATOM definition flash scanner was put into operation in Vietnam following a successful installation and application training at Bach Mai Hospital in Hanoi.

The SOMATOM definition flash, Siemens’ latest high-end scanner, is ranked as the most advanced CT scanner to date and was especially designed to make CT exams much healthier for patients.

“The system is planned to be officially inaugurated on February 23, 2012 in Hanoi,” said a company release.

The SOMATOM® definition flash opens a door to new levels of patient friendliness with the speed to cover the entire thorax in less than a second.

A whole-body scan requires only five seconds, while for perfusion or dynamic vascular imaging long-range scans become routine and pediatric scans become sub-second procedures. Flash is also the solution for scanning your difficult patients, such as obese and trauma patients, restless children and patients who cannot hold their breath for long, thus causing no time-consuming interruptions in your daily practice.

Moreover, applying the lowest radiation dose possible and bringing the excellent image quality are the utmost criteria when developing a new medical imaging system at Siemens. With a temporal resolution of 75ms and the ability to scan the heart in just a quarter of a second, it allows to routinely achieve dose levels below 1 mSv in Cardiac CT – dose levels that were previously unachievable with conventional CT scanners.

“The biggest challenge in performing a CT exam of the coronary arteries is the high heart rate. Previously, we were not able to acquire images of the coronary arteries when the heart rate was above 80 beats per minute. Even at 70 beats per minute, the image quality was not good enough.

The SOMATOM definition flash allows us to scan virtually any patient regardless of the heart rate and without the use of beta-blockers,” said professor Pham Minh Thong, vice director and head of the hospital’s Imaging Diagnostics Department.

“With the high temporal and spatial resolution, Siemens’ SOMATOM definition flash makes scans faster and, at the same time, provides images with better quality compared to conventional CT systems.” he added.

“Siemens has been supplying many premium imaging systems to the hospital, and this time we are offering them one of our best products on the market. The system not only friendly to the environment but also to the patient as it lowers the radiation dose to previously unseen levels.

We are confident that this advanced CT scanner will help improve the quality of diagnosis and treatment at the hospital, especially in diagnosis of heart disease, which is one of the most dangerous diseases to human nowadays,” said Erdal Elver, president and chief executive officer of Siemens Vietnam.