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A new high definition Computerised Tomograpghy (CT) scanner has today been commissioned at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading, United Kingdom, and is set to bring major benefits for the diagnosis and treatment of heart and cardiac patients.

Consultants at the hospital have welcomed it’s installation, commenting that this is a huge step forward. The new scanner will revolutionsie the imaging and treatment of a vast range of medical conditions that require the increased resolution that high definition scans provide.

HD CT Scanner one of only seven worldwide

This is a medical first for the United Kingdom, as the high definition CT scanner is the only one of it’s kind in the country, and only one of two in Europe, and seven in the entire world just now.

The new scanner manufactured by GE Healthcare, a global leader in imaging and in dose reduction technologies, was announced to the World in June 2008 as the first high definition CT scanner. This machine, known as the LightSpeed CT750 HD has obtained U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) clearance and will set the new standard for the clarity of CT scans, allowing the medical profession access to faster, improved medical imaging. It is claimed that the images produced from the machine can even predict the possibility of a stroke in advance.

Dr Neil Derbyshire, consultant radiologist, interviewed on the BBC South Today News program whilst working with the new machine said “we’re getting beautiful pictures of the arteries in the abdomen, and the arteries down the legs”. He continued “Image quality has improved, particularly in certain areas, for example vascular, imaging of the arteries. One of the features of this scanner .. we soon wish to be developing cardiac work”.

Normal CT scans can be grainy and unclear, but a doctor looking at an HD scan can see much more detail over a wider area. They can even see 3D models of organs, so invasive examinations are not necessary.

HD CT major benefit for cardiac and heart disease patients

This has already resulted in the Royal Berkshire Hospital being able to treat patients that it used to send elsewhere. The machine is capable of providing HD scans and processing up to 7 patients per hour, and is now going to be in constant use 24 hours per day. During the daytime it will be used for routine work, and during the night for emergencies.

The new HD scanner will need to work very hard to justify it’s 2.5 million dollar cost, but it’s already letting doctors see enhanced detail in parts of the body that normal CT scanners cannot cope with.

Doctor Derbyshire added “and the new areas that we hope to start scanning are [certainly] the cardiac work which we have not been able to do before, so we hope to scan two to three hundred patients a year, looking at their coronary arteries, better definition of the brain, and another area that we want to start scanning on is the colon”.

With demand for it’s services set to increase, the hospital have purchased only the second scanner to be made available in the United Kingdom as well, and this additional machine is due to come on line in April 2009.