The Spirit of the North Healthcare Foundation showed off almost two years of fund raising efforts this morning at the University Hospital of Northern BC; a state of the art $1.4M SPECT – CT scanner.
The Hospital’s Lead Nuclear Medicine Radiogist Dr. Elshazly says the machine merges scans from what are normally two separate scanners into one image
“There are two of these machines in the province, this is the second one. It’s basically the future of radiology; bi-imaging or hybrid imaging”
Dr. Elshazly said that SPECT is a functional type of nuclear imaging that creates 3D images while CT focuses on anatomy. Combining the two onto one image gives doctors a “very powerful tool” for diagnosing cancer patients, trauma and other applications.
“A year ago there were so many conditions that we could not diagnose before we got the scanner…” Elshazly said “It’s definitely impacting treatment; you can actually quantify cancer treatments by examining lesions before and after treatment.”
Elshazly said the machine could go as far as to predict that a patent needs heart surgery before he even has a heart attack.
Wait times for the scanner are mostly below the two week level, with it available for emergency use as well.
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