The University of Edinburgh just switched on Scotland’s first photon-counting CT scanner, the Siemens Healthineers NAEOTOM Alpha. This machine sees what no other CT in the country can see, and doctors say it will change how we spot and treat heart disease, lung problems, brain conditions and vascular disease.
This is not just a faster scanner. It is the first system that counts every single X-ray photon that hits the detector. That simple change delivers sharper images, lower radiation doses and new information that conventional scanners throw away.
Why This Machine Is Different
Traditional CT scanners turn X-rays into light, then into electrical signals. A lot of data gets lost along the way.
The NAEOTOM Alpha skips those steps. Its detectors catch each photon directly and measure its exact energy. The result is ultra-high resolution images plus full spectral data on every scan, every time.
Patients get up to 45% less radiation. Doctors see tiny calcium flecks in coronary arteries, fatty plaques that are about to rupture, and lung nodules that were previously invisible.
Professor Michelle Williams, who led the installation, put it bluntly: “For the first time, we can see structures and processes in the body that were not previously visible.”
Immediate Impact on Major Studies
The scanner is already booked solid.
The flagship project is SCOT-HEART 2, the British Heart Foundation-funded trial that asks a simple question: can routine coronary CT angiography in people with suspected heart disease prevent more heart attacks than standard care?
With the new scanner, researchers can now track plaque composition, spot vulnerable plaques, and measure inflammation around arteries, all non-invasively.
Similar gains are coming in neurology. Researchers will image small vessel disease in the brain with unprecedented clarity, helping explain why some people have strokes or cognitive decline with no large blocked arteries.
Real-World Patient Wins Starting Now
Clinicians at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary will use the scanner for tough cases: patients with chest pain where standard tests are inconclusive, complex congenital heart disease, and cancer patients needing precise lung and vessel mapping before surgery.
One early case involved a 58-year-old man with intermittent chest pain. Conventional CT showed nothing obvious. The photon-counting scan revealed a soft, lipid-rich plaque in the left anterior descending artery that was missed before. He went straight to the cath lab and had a stent placed the same week.
Stories like that will become routine.
Only a Handful Exist in the UK
Edinburgh now joins an elite group. As of December 2024, fewer than ten NAEOTOM Alpha systems are running clinically in the entire United Kingdom.
Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee and Inverness patients will be referred to Edinburgh when this level of detail is needed, effectively making the capital the national reference centre for photon-counting CT in the short term.
Siemens Healthineers says more Scottish sites are in discussion, but Edinburgh will keep the lead for research and complex diagnostics for years.
The scanner sits in the Clinical Research Imaging Facility at the Royal Infirmary, right next to the cardiology and neurology wards. That location means same-day scanning for in-patients and rapid translation of research findings into bedside care.
This is precision medicine arriving in Scotland, not in five years, but today.
Doctors, researchers and patients across the country finally have a tool that sees the human body the way it actually is, photon by photon.
What do you think this will mean for heart and brain patients in Scotland over the next decade? Drop your thoughts below.
