SnapShot Pulse
GE's prospective ECG-gated cardiac CT acquisition mode. Synchronizes scan timing to a single cardiac phase per heartbeat, eliminating the dose penalty of retrospective gating (which acquires through the entire cardiac cycle). Acquisition fires only during the diastolic / pre-specified window, dramatically reducing patient dose for coronary CTA. Vendor analogs include Siemens Adaptive Cardio Sequence and Philips Step & Shoot Cardiac.
Why it matters to buyers: Cardiac CT capability. If you're buying a CT for cardiac imaging, SnapShot Pulse — or the vendor equivalent — is a required feature, paired with rotation time fast enough for clinical heart rates and a license tier that includes the cardiac package.
Why it matters to engineers: Requires cardiac license + ECG hardware. Beta-blockade pre-medication protocols are typical to lower heart rate into the platform's gating window. Motion-correction tools (SnapShot Freeze on GE, Adaptive Cardio Reco on Siemens) recover image quality on patients whose heart rate or arrhythmia exceeds the gating envelope.