Siemens Healthcare's new 128-slice CT scanner, the Somatom Perspective, has received Food and Drug Administration 510(k) clearance, the company announced Wednesday.

The device, which debuted at the Radiological Society of North America's annual meeting in November, is being marketed as a lower-cost but still "high-end" unit, suited for U.S. imaging centers and community and critical access hospitals.

A promotional video for the product, which somewhat resembles a car ad in the way it focuses on the scanner's precision-hewed curves, actually dubs it the "business class" CT scanner.
It's on the small side, with a 194 square foot footprint, and Siemens claims it uses less electricity than other CT systems. According to Siemens press material from RSNA, the system uses 71 kVA of electricity, on average, and emits 7 kW of heat, so needs less cooling.

It's also the first model to come with Siemens' eMode, which automatically adjusts scanning parameters to minimize wear and tear on the system. A special service contract available for the system also grants users a special benefit, such as overnight maintenance services, if after a year they've run at least 80 percent of their scans in eMode.

Standard models include Siemens' iterative reconstruction technology, SAFIRE. According to Siemens test data, this can cut dose by 54 to 60 percent, when compared against earlier filtered back projection techniques, and can process 15 images per second.

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