In interventional, surgical and emergency settings, timely care is crucial—and access to high-quality CT imaging on the spot can help radiologists deliver fast and accurate diagnoses without skipping a beat in workflow.
Maloberti
For NeuroLogica, a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., “Leading Through Change” means freeing CT imaging from the static radiology suite, pioneering CT scanners that enable mobility without a compromise in quality.
“We were the first to put CT on wheels,” said Renaud Maloberti, NeuroLogica’s head of mobile CT. “The idea was, instead of bringing the patient to a radiology suite, we brought the radiology suite to the patient.”
Clinicians know that “time is brain” in a case of stroke, and that negative outcomes compound by the minute when care is delayed. Additionally, transport can pose risks to critically ill patients. Mobilizing CT imaging and improving patient outcomes was NeuroLogica’s goal when it was founded in 2004.
The following year, the company launched its CereTom® portable 8-slice head and neck CT scanner, and its utility branched out to intensive care units, neurosurgical operating rooms, emergency departments and mobile stroke units worldwide.
“We’ve evolved from there,” Maloberti said. “While the neurology segment is still part of our core business, we now have full-body mobile CT—a 32-slice scanner and a 64-slice scanner—that can do the same thing and provide the same quality that a static CT machine can do.”
“That’s what amazes our customers,” he added. “There is really no compromise.”
There’s no compromise in safety, either, according to Maloberti. The mobile CT units are built with internal lead shielding, minimizing radiation exposure without the need to build a dedicated room.
At RSNA 2023, NeuroLogica will introduce its latest system, the OmniTom® Elite Photon Counting mobile CT scanner. The photon counting technology has the potential to improve image quality with fewer artifacts, enhanced differentiation of gray and white matter, ability for material decomposition and density differentiation—all with reduced radiation dose. At this point, the OmniTom® Elite Photon Counting CT scanner is US FDA 510(k) cleared for having multi-energy CT functionality, including high resolution scanning and spectral capability for material decomposition and virtual monoenergetic images (VMI).
Like its predecessors, the photon counting scanner boasts omni-directional wheels and an integrated drive system that allows it to be easily transported around the facility, along with an auto-align feature that aids easy setup, even in a small room.
Maloberti cites another area in which NeuroLogica leads through change: Its customer support model. “I’m always amazed by the team here at NeuroLogica. They go the extra mile to make sure that the systems deliver on our promise to bring top-of-the-line, super high capability imaging to the point of care,” he said.
And the applications keep expanding. NeuroLogica’s CT products are now employed in diagnostic centers, brachytherapy suites, medical examiner facilities, and veterinary hospitals, for example.
“When we talk to people who work in interventional radiology or the ICU we hear that they don’t want to disturb the workflow in the main radiology suite,” Maloberti said. “We can bring radiology capability to where the patient needs it. Customers are continually surprised by what they can do with our CT.”
Visit Samsung at Booth 6113 during RSNA 2023 to see product demonstrations and get more information about CT, radiography and ultrasound.
