Siemens Healthineers, a subsidiary of German multinational conglomerate Siemens, expects to add Thailand to a list of users of its latest computerised tomography (CT) scan technology, which promises better disease diagnosis at hospitals.
"We expect our CT scanner, embedded with our latest technology, to gain interest in Thailand the same way it did in the US and European countries," said Björn Bodenstein, managing director of Siemens Healthineers in Thailand.
He was speaking yesterday at an event that issued invitations to more than 100 medical and healthcare personnel to attend to gain first-hand information on the technology.
According to Siemens Healthineers, conventional CT imaging has reached its technical limitations as resolution can only be improved by small margins and the radiation dose cannot be reduced significantly.
The company used technology called "photo-counting" to enable drastic improvements to a CT scanner.
These improvements include an increase in resolution and a reduction in the dose of radiation by up to 45% for ultra-high resolution (UHR) scans, compared with conventional CT detectors with a UHR comb filter.
Photon-counting scans contain more useable data, as photon-counting technology directly detects each X-ray photon and its energy level instead of first converting it into visible light as with conventional CT imaging, the company said.
"We expect Thai hospitals to consider buying this CT scanner as it can improve treatment for patients," said Mr Bodenstein.
The CT scanner was officially launched last year. Since then, up to 60 have been sold, mostly in the US, Europe and, more recently, Singapore.
Siemens Healthineers sees a new business opportunity in Thailand as the government has a policy to make Thailand a medical hub as well as promote investments under its Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) scheme.
Medical and wellness tourism is among 12 targeted S-curve industries in the EEC, which will be turned into the country's high-tech industrial hub.
