Photon-counting CT scanners are revolutionising heart diagnostics

Dr Thomas Semple

Consultant Paediatric and Adult Cardiothoracic Radiologist, Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Foundation Trust

The latest computed tomography (CT) scanning technology offers cutting-edge diagnostics to heart patients, allowing doctors to see tiny moving structures in vivid high-resolution.

London’s Royal Brompton Hospital, part of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, is the UK’s largest specialist heart and lung centre and consistently takes a pioneering approach to medical technology. It’s why Dr Thomas Semple wanted to work there.

As a consultant radiologist at the hospital for the last seven years, he has expertise in imaging of heart and lung conditions from newborns to adults. “The hospital has been an early adopter of cutting-edge cardiac technology for longer than I’ve been in medicine,” he says. “For instance, it’s been using state-of-the-art cardiac CT scanners since the 1990s.”

Pioneering photon-counting CT scanners

A cardiac CT scan is an imaging test that creates high-resolution images of coronary arteries and other heart structures. Scans are non-invasive, safe, quick and can be done on an outpatient basis. Recently, Royal Brompton’s scanning capabilities took a quantum leap forward with the introduction of Siemens’ NAEOTOM Alpha CT scanner — the only one of its kind in London, based at 79 Wimpole Street Consulting Rooms and Diagnostic Centre, and the first in private practice in the UK.

As the world’s first commercially available photon-counting CT scanner, it creates extraordinarily high-resolution images in a fraction of a second, allowing experts to analyse the heart and coronary arteries in vivid detail at a low radiation dose.

The hospital has been an early adopter
of cutting-edge cardiac technology
for longer than I’ve been in medicine.

Detailed images reduce the need for additional testing

“Even with high-end conventional CT scanners, it can be difficult to see small vessels through small coronary stents or around heavily calcified coronary disease,” says Dr Semple. “None of that is an issue with our photon-counting scanner. It’s been likened to moving from a traditional Polaroid camera to a modern digital single-lens camera.”

As the hospitals’ clinicians can more confidently diagnose with a single scan, this new technology reduces the need for additional testing. “It allows us to more confidently determine what is a significant disease that needs treating,” says Dr Semple. “With the right scan done by the right team at the right time, it’s likely to be the only test needed to guide decisions” and can be used in many other areas of medicine too.

A revolutionary change in health imaging

For Dr Semple, it’s an exciting development — and proof that Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals remain at the forefront of heart health for people of all ages. “We were already pushing the boundaries with conventional scanners,” he says. “This new technology will allow us to go even further.”