St Joseph’s Hospital adds advanced CT system

To increase the capacity of cardiac scanning and improve patient experience, St Joseph’s Hospital in Newport, Wales, has installed the Aquilion One / Insight Edition with the new Instinx AI-assisted workflow tool, making it the first hospital in Wales and the first private hospital in the UK to benefit from Canon Medical Systems’ most advanced CT system.

Last year, the hospital treated around 69,000 patients in Wales and south-west England, with the CT department being one of the most in-demand departments of the hospital. To help manage an increasing level of patient intake, St Joseph’s Hospital needed a scanning system that would be very fast, safe and reliable to allow its team to diagnose as quickly and accurately as possible.

The Aquilion One / Insight Edition offers an optimised workflow experience that is designed to set new standards in efficiency, consistency and patient comfort. It utilises automated solutions such as one-touch patient positioning and automatic scan planning.

Specialised CT and MRI radiographer Ben Day said: “Many patients are anxious when having a CT scan, often caused by a feeling of claustrophobia. In addition to offering a smooth scanning experience, the new CT system is much more spacious, which immediately puts patients at ease.”

Image quality has been enhanced with the new system, which enables the hospital to produce high quality scans of the entire body quickly. For cardiac scanning in particular, rotations of the heart can be achieved in 0.24 seconds, enabling effective scans to be achieved under all circumstances – from high
heart rates and fast trauma to paediatric scans. Equipped with the deep learning reconstruction algorithm PIQE, the system enhances image resolution. The rapid acquisition helps to reduce motion artefact, meaning that high quality scans can be achieved at a much lower radiation dose.

Consultant radiologist Dr Andrew Morley added: “I have been extremely impressed by the cardiac images produced by the new CT system. Canon Medical has always stood out for cardiac scanning, but the new system has surpassed expectations. We can now achieve better resolution with PIQE higher definition images, less blooming artefact and at faster heart rates. Meanwhile, lung images are more detailed than ever, to the point where we are seeing detail not previously seen.”

Lead picture: the team at St Joseph’s Hospital, with Canon Medical Systems account manager Thomas Laurie and regional sales manager Colin Pellow.

Read this report on page 3 of the February 2025 issue of RAD Magazine.