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Memorial Medical Center's new CT scanner delivers faster, clearer images

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[July 13, 2007]  SPRINGFIELD -- Memorial Medical Center's Emergency Department has installed the newest development in CT scanners, which uses two X-ray sources to provide faster and crystal-clear imaging without the need for medications to slow a patient's heart.

Memorial is one of the first hospitals in Illinois to install the dual-source CT scanner from Siemens Medical Solutions. The new scanner produces images with twice the speed of the most advanced single-source CT scanners. Siemens' Somatom Definition can complete an image in 83 milliseconds -- less time than it takes the heart to beat. The entire scan of a heart takes 10 seconds.

"Time is critical in the emergency department as physicians make potentially lifesaving decisions," said Dr. David Griffen, medical director of Memorial's Emergency Department. "This leading-edge scanner allows us to diagnose and treat our patients more quickly and safely."

The dual-source feature allows physicians to image patients with elevated or irregular heart rates without having to first administer beta blocker medication to reduce the heart rate before the exam. With other CT scanners, patients must take beta blockers to slow the heart before it can be seen clearly because the motion of the beating heart can cause blurred images.

"This technology is an enormous benefit to cardiac patients who weren't able to have CT exams because of conditions that precluded the use of beta blockers," said Dr. Nasaraiah Nallamothu, a cardiologist with Prairie Cardiovascular Consultants. Patients with conditions that affect breathing, such as asthma, chronic bronchitis and emphysema, could not use beta blockers, which can narrow the air passages in the lungs and worsen their conditions.

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In addition to capturing detailed images at much higher speeds, the scanner also greatly improves diagnostic capabilities while using techniques to reduce radiation to patients.

"The lowest possible radiation is an important benefit for patients," said Dr. Andrew Sherrick, a radiologist with Clinical Radiologists, S.C. "The speed of the system allows physicians to obtain images in half the time." Special software that automatically reduces radiation to the lowest possible dose for the patient is used.

"The ability to diagnose patients quickly and accurately in the acute-care setting enables us to avoid unnecessary admissions for further testing for some patients and to detect serious disease in other patients initially thought to be safe to go home," Griffen said.

The scanner is also large enough and powerful enough to exam obese patients, who may not fit comfortably in traditional CT scanners and who present difficulties in obtaining richly detailed images. Nearly two-thirds of adults older than 20 years in the United States are now overweight, and 30 percent of those individuals are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Memorial Medical Center, 701 N. First St., is a not-for-profit, community-based hospital in the Illinois Medical District at Springfield.

[Text from news release received from Memorial Medical Center]

    

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