Is there any bigger floor show in Chicago this time of year than the annual Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) annual meeting? CT, MRI, ultrasound, X-ray, information technology (IT), mammography and more – it’s all there and it’s all new or upgraded. Get an idea of what to expect on the exhibit floor. Then read our hints for things to see and places to go away from the exhibit floor.

Is there any bigger floor show in Chicago this time of year than the annual Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) annual meeting? Everything that has anything to imaging will be there, including some of the following new offerings from companies both big and small.

The development of computed tomography (CT) seems to follow that old adage, “the more, the merrier”: multislice CT technology continues to edge out single-slice CT since its appearance four years ago.

 Toshiba America Medical Systems’ Aquilion 16 CT scanner

Toshiba America Medical Systems (TAMS of Tustin, Calif.) comes to town with its Aquilion 16 CT scanner, complete with 40-row detector design, isotropic scanning and patented image-reconstruction technology for greater diagnostic capabilities.

Siemens Medical Solutions (Iselin, N.J.), meanwhile, is showing several multislice scanners, among them the new Somatom Sensation 10 CT. The system’s 10-slice technology can acquire 20 slices per second when operating at maximum rotation speed and can produce six images per second. Based on the Siemens’ Somatom Sensation 16, the Sensation 10 includes Siemens’ standard syngo, WorkSream and CareDose technologies.

GE Medical Systems (GEMS of Waukesha, Wis.) wheels into RSNA 2002 with a new mobile CT system, the LightSpeed(16). The scanner is designed to capture 16 simultaneous images of the body in 0.625 slices to deliver high-resolution images and effective dose for advanced clinical applications.

 Philips’16-slice Mx8000 IDT CT scanner

Philips Medical Systems (Bothell, Wash.) is shipping its 16-slice Mx8000 IDT (infinite detector technology) CT scanner. The company says the system can acquire 16 simultaneous slices with submillimeter isotropic accuracy and speeds up to 38 images per second. The system also features 0.42-second rotation time to enable clinicians to cover the entire heart in three seconds. By design, the thinner slices and clearer images also help diagnose conditions in oncology, neurology and trauma.

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