Our Research CT Scanners
The CT system installed in the CT Clinical Innovation Center, located in Mayo Clinic's Department of Radiology on Mayo Building's third floor, is a Siemens NAEOTOM Alpha, which was installed in 2021. The Alpha is a dual-source photon counting detector (PCD) CT scanner, and is the world’s first commercially available clinical PCD-CT system.
Mayo Clinic and Siemens have been collaborating closely on photon counting detector technology for many years. In 2014, the first PCD prototype, the Siemens SOMATOM CounT, was installed in Opus as an investigational scanner. In 2020, the second generation prototype PCD system, the SOMATOM Count Plus, was installed to continue the investigation of clinical photon counting CT and asses image quality with the technological improvements developed since the first generation system was built. In April of 2021, the NAEOTOM Alpha arrived, first as an investigational prototype system, and then as a clinically capable system following FDA clearance on September 30, 2021.
The NAEOTOM Alpha features dual-source Vectron tubes with dual photon counting detectors. It has a minimum gantry rotation time of 0.25 seconds, 6 cm z-coverage, and a minimum temporal resolution of 66 ms. Photon counting technology allows numerous benefits such as spectral information with any scan, unprecedented high spatial resolution, and improved dose efficiency and iodine contrast-to-noise ratio. Since this is a new emerging technology and first-of-its-kind scanner, numerous opportunities exist to explore and identify advantages and new applications for CT that can benefit diagnostic imaging and impact patient care.
Installed in 2014, an additional Siemens Whole-Body, Photon Counting Detector CT scanner is located in Mayo's research imaging facility.
