“The images that we create are amazing, so much better than what we had before. What we had before was good, but this is hands-down better,” said Dr. Susan Staniszewski, director of imaging services for Shelby Baptist.
Shelby Baptist purchased the machine because of the hospital’s three new catheterization labs and the heart surgeries they perform. “The prior technology that we had could do a heart scan, but only under the best circumstances, and we wanted to be able to scan the heart in any circumstance to add to our cardiology services. We looked at this scanner because of its other applications.”
The dual sources of the Definition are the two X-ray tubes inside the gantry. They both work at different energy levels and capture different types of tissues. The system captures bone and soft tissue separately. When the computer processes the images, they can be manipulated because they were captured separately, giving radiologists the ability to color and remove different parts of the images.
“If we’re doing an angiography study, we can remove all the bone and all the soft tissue except for the arteries themselves. So in the end, we have an image of just the arteries,” Staniszewski said.
The Definition will be used throughout the hospital because it can perform basic scans as well as heart and other dual energy scans.
April Holcomb, director of business development, said, “The Definition is a part of our multiphase facility growth plan. It makes sense for us to upgrade and replace our technology with the state-of-the-art.”
“We typically don’t have to use beta blockers. In the older technology, you have to slow the rate down to about 60 to get a good scan, while here we can scan up to 140 beats with no problem,” Staniszewski said.
This is helpful because some people can’t take beta blockers, and in an emergency situation, beta blockers can take an hour to begin working and sometimes don’t work on all patients.
Staniszewski also appreciates the fact that the Definition uses a lower dose of radiation.
For example, when a coronary artery scan is performed, it exposes the patient to half the regular dose. “You would think that, with the Definition having two tubes, your radiation dosage would be at least as high or higher. In fact, it’s not and that’s simply because of the technology. The faster the heart rate, the faster the scan will go, actually ending the exam sooner.”
Staniszewski is excited about all the applications of the Definition, but she is particularly interested in the coronary artery and other CT angiography studies that are conducted at the hospital. One example is lower extremity runoff. “If you have plaquing in the arteries of your heart, then you will have plaquing in other arteries, your renal arteries or the arteries in your legs. We are able to do CTA studies of the lower extremities. It’s possible that some of these other arteries need stenting. We can see very fine detail in the other artery studies.”
The Definition will be an improvement for the hospital’s patients and physicians. “There is certainly better patient comfort,” Staniszewski said. “They are not on the table as long. They’re not in the tube as long. We will be able to capture better quality images giving far greater detail, especially in the orthopedic and neurology applications. We will be able to find very small details of artery, neurology or other tissues far better than we did before.”
June 2008
