slice count
Number of simultaneous slices a CT scanner acquires per gantry rotation. Drives whole-body coverage speed, cardiac temporal resolution, and clinical-capability tier. Common tiers:
- 16-slice — entry / refurb workhorse for general radiology.
- 32 / 40-slice — mid-tier bridge.
- 64-slice — clinical workhorse since 2004 launch convergence.
- 128 / 256-slice — premium diagnostic, with cardiac and dual-energy capability.
- 320-slice / wide-detector (Aquilion ONE, Revolution CT) — single-rotation whole-organ imaging.
- Dual-source (Definition Flash, Force) — two tubes / detectors at 90° offset; effectively 192-slice equivalent on cardiac.
Why it matters to buyers: Biggest clinical-capability gate on CT purchase. Higher slice count = faster whole-body coverage, useful cardiac CT (64+ as the floor for clinical cardiac), and trauma pan-scan in seconds. Mid-tier 16 / 64-slice configurations cover most general radiology; cardiac / wide-cone capability requires the upper tiers.
Why it matters to engineers: Detector count, DAS channel count, and reconstruction time all scale with slices. Higher-tier scanners produce more raw data per second; reconstruction-engine performance can become the bottleneck on dose-modulated, iterative-recon workflows.