This isn’t yesterday’s science fiction today. It’s scientists and engineers making ideas real almost as fast as Hollywood writers can think them up. Visions of the 24th century became practical last month when South Peninsula Hospital installed its next-generation computer tomography scanner.
“We’re breaking barriers in speed and accuracy of patient exams, and are now able to offer new and enhanced diagnostic procedures,” said Donna Rufsholm, radiology manager.
Originally known as computed axial tomography, CAT scans shoot an X-ray beam through a patient as the projector turns around the patient’s body on a single axis, creating an image like a slice. (“Tomography” comes from the Greek words “tomos,” meaning “slice,” and “graphia,” meaning “describing.”)
Earlier CAT scans made one 2 centimeter (0.8 inch) thick slice per rotation, with a rotation taking two minutes. A complete exam could take up to 20 minutes, with patients having to hold their breath for up to 10 seconds at a time.
The LightSpeed VCT, made by General Electric Healthcare, makes 64 slices .6 mm (0.024 inch) thick — about the thickness of a credit card — in one rotation of about a half-second. In 12 seconds, the LightSpeed can create 1,200 images. The faster scanning time results in better imaging and less patient anxiety, particularly for children and accident victims. The resolution is also higher, with each pixel 0.6-by-0.6 mm (0.024-inches-by-0.024-inches).
“We get better information, which means better diagnoses,” said Wells. “If (patients) can hold their breath and lie still for two seconds, we’ve got a better examination.”
At faster speeds, the LightSpeed also makes computed tomography useful for diagnosing heart diseases — something earlier technology couldn’t do.
“The LightSpeed is able to capture the image of any organ in one second and images of the heart and coronary arteries in as few as five heartbeats,” said Charlie Franz, chief executive officer of South Peninsula Hospital.
The turnaround on processing images is also faster, with the LightSpeed taking about 15 minutes, compared to 30 to 45 minutes for the old machine.
At a demonstration last week, radiology technician Timo Saarinen showed some recent images taken of patients. The LightSpeed scanner makes successive image slices across a patient’s body, as if a magician were performing the magic trick of sawing a woman in half. From the information, computer programs can generate three-dimensional images.
One three-dimensional image of a car accident victim’s chest clearly showed broken ribs. Doctors were more concerned about internal bleeding, particularly in the patient’s liver. One image showed a slice across the patient’s abdomen in the area of the liver. Wells explained that a dark blob in the middle of the liver indicated bleeding and damage, but that the injury and bleeding hadn’t spread outside the organ. The patient would need to be watched, but might avoid surgery — exactly the kind of information doctors need from a LightSpeed scan.
“It will save a lot of exploratory surgery,” Wells said. “It narrows down the area if surgery is required.”
A three-dimensional image of a patient’s skull showed teeth, roots, the fine bones of the face, natural skull sutures and the supporting spine. Wells said a Soldotna dentist who does dental and facial reconstructions was so impressed by the resolution of the LightSpeed images that he might send patients to South Peninsula Hospital to get scans.
“The machine is astounding in terms of its resolution,” Saarinen said.
“Instead of being at the bottom of technology, we’re right up there with the other hospitals,” Wells said.
Or, as Rufsholm said, repeating the hospital’s unofficial slogan, “We’re the biggest little hospital in the state of Alaska,”
At $1.7 million, the LightSpeed scanner is more expensive than the scanner it replaced, which cost $550,000 in 1998. The scanner itself is $1.1 million, but the total price includes a companion system: the picture archival communications system, a computer image system that will store patient scans — and allow those images to be shared with other doctors. Patients can even take home a DVD of their LightSpeed scan and watch it on a DVD player. The new system will have 7 terabytes of hard-drive memory, or 7,000 gigabytes — or 140 50-gigabyte computers.
Although the LightSpeed is more expensive, the billable rate for a scan will stay the same, Franz said. South Peninsula’s charges are based on Medicare and Medicaid rates, and are about in the middle of the state rate scale. Depending on the exam — abdomen or full-body — a LightSpeed scan would cost from $1,000 to $1,700, Franz said. The return on the hospital’s investment will be about five years, compared to eight years for the old system, Franz said. He estimated the hospital would do about 100 scans a month.
The LightSpeed has been operating for about three weeks. The radiology staff has been trained in the machine’s basic operation and will be getting more advanced training over the next month.
For more information on the LightSpeed scanner, visit South Peninsula Hospital’s Web site at www.sphosp.com, and click on the “VCT scanner” link.
Michael Armstrong can be reached at michael.armstrong@homernews.com.
No, it’s not Dr. Beverly Crusher examining a patient for Barclay’s Proto-Morphosis Syndrome, as seen on “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” but Dr. Tom Wells looking at an image created by South Peninsula Hospital’s new LightSpeed volume computed tomography scanner.
Homer is the first rural hospital to get a LightSpeed scan, and one of four hospitals in Alaska to have the new equipment. Central Peninsula Hospital’s CT scanner does not yet have a 64-slice scanner.
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