GE speeds up diagnoses at UW Medical Center
GE Healthcare has installed its Lightspeed VCT 64-slice scanner at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle, Wash.
   
The Lightspeed VCT non-invasively captures images of any organ in one second and capture images of the heart and coronary arteries in fewer than five heartbeats. The VCT scanner will allow UW physicians to diagnostically scan patients exhibiting acute chest pain in the emergency room quickly and non-invasively for evidence of the three most life-threatening causes of chest pain: coronary artery insufficiency, aortic dissection and pulmonary embolic disease.
   
The new scanner will also aid in detecting vascular disease in the brain and other parts of the body, said Dr. William Shuman, director of radiology at UW Medical Center and vice-chair of the Department of Radiology in the UW School of Medicine.
   
Not only are the VCT scans brief, they require 40 percent less contrast solution injected into the patient before the exam. "This means a shorter visit and less preparation for each patient," Shuman said. "With the new scanner, we will be able to examine about four patients per hour, twice as many as with our previous equipment."
   
UW Medical Center will be installing a second LightSpeed VCT scanner later this month, GE said.
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