Siemens Healthineers has introduced two CT systems, namely Somatom go.Sim and Somatom go.Open Pro that are specifically designed to facilitate planning procedures for radiation therapy and to provide improved images to help calculate radiation plans.
CT images enable radiation oncologists to identify the target tumor and more precise planning means the tumor can be treated with improved accuracy, while providing better protection for surrounding tissue and organs-at-risk.
“We developed Somatom go.Sim and Somatom go.Open Pro in deep cooperation with world leading radiotherapy experts,” said Dr. Gabriel Haras, Head of Radiation Oncology at Siemens Healthineers. “We firmly believe that these systems will help healthcare providers to overcome challenges in planning radiation therapy and drive forward precision medicine in the fight against cancer.”
Designed to accommodate patient positioning accessories and increase patient comfort, the 64-slice Somatom go.Sim and the 128-slice Somatom go.Open Pro have an extra-large 85 cm bore. Both systems also feature optional patient marking lasers known as Direct Laser. The laser is used to mark the position for treatment in the CT, which makes subsequent positioning in the linear accelerator both faster and more accurate. The Direct Laser system is mounted directly onto the gantry and controlled via a mobile tablet. The new GO with Green mobile workflow brings ease of use and walks the radiation therapist through each step of the patient setup process, enabling the therapist to remain at the patient’s side, potentially improving communication and comfort as well as reducing anxiety.
The Somatom go. Sim and Somatom go.Open Pro also feature DirectORGANS for OAR (Organs at Risk) contouring. This software automatically addresses the dependency between image quality and the consistency of autocontouring results. Based on Siemens Healthineers strong competence in Artificial Intelligence, DirectORGANS uses a specialized image reconstruction, optimizing the CT images for autocontouring and applying a deep learning-trained contouring algorithm. DirectORGANS may reduce unwarranted variations with high-quality contours that approach the level of consensus-based contours.
Unique to the Somatom go.Open Pro CT system is the Direct Intelligent 4D (Direct i4D) technology, which adapts the image acquisition to a patient’s breathing in real time during the scan. Direct i4D is designed to help optimize image quality for each patient, reducing artifacts that are common to 4D image sets and often prompt rescans. In this manner, Direct i4D images can help customers treat more patients with techniques such as stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) that require a high degree of precision to avoid damaging healthy tissue.
Siemens Healthineers
Erlangen, Germany