NORFOLK -- New technology is bringing low dose CT Imaging to Hampton Roads. The 64-slice CT scanner has advanced software in it that allows technicians to be able to reduce radiation exposure by up to 40 percent while improving the image clarity.
Bon Secours DePaul in Norfolk is the first hospital in the area to have this new $1.2 million machine.
The chair of the Department of Radiology at DePaul, Dr. Harry Allen, says, "For patients that have repeated CT images because of cancer screening and follow up, they end up getting a fairly substantial amount of radiation over their entire lifetime. So if you can reduce the individual dose of these images when we obtain these studies then the patient is better off for it."
Crisandra Hope agrees. Eight years ago, she had breast cancer and she was in remission until last April when she found out it was back and had metastasized.
"When you went through what I went through, having to take a whole lot of things that involve radiation, something like this is good. I think it's fantastic," she said.
Dr. Allen says the new machine can obtain 64 images in less than a second and the whole body -- from head to toe -- can be imaged in less than ten seconds. He says the images are about the thickness of a credit card.
"That obviously is the most detailed kind of image that you could possible obtain," he noted.
For the technicians who use the machine daily, like Kimberly Christian, it's been great.
"It does a lot of things for you. So we're able to get back to our patients sooner. The images are already getting sent over and it just makes the whole process faster from the time they are on the table to the time they leave the department to the time those images go to the radiologist.. Everything is faster," she explained.
Faster technology means the machine can do a lot of things that older CT machines couldn't do, like evaluate blood vessels in the abdomen, pelvis, brain and even the heart.
"The old CT just wasn't fast enough to obtain clear images of the heart at all. So we need technology of this magnitude to be able to basically stop the motion of the heart to be able to get a clear image of it," Dr. Allen stated.
The new CT scanner arrived in May and already almost 2,000 patients have used it.
Hope adds, "That makes the biggest difference in the world as far as your comfort and making you feel more relaxed."
