Lancaster General Hospital Expands Cardiac Imaging Capabilities

 

Cardiac patients at Lancaster General Hospital in Lancaster, Pa., can enjoy state-of-the-art CT technology for faster and safer exams with the facility’s Aquilion™ ONE ViSION Edition system from Toshiba Medical, a Canon Group company. With the premium system, physicians at Lancaster General Health/Penn Medicine are able to efficiently image a wide variety of patients and are investigating the implementation of CT myocardial perfusion to improve cardiac patient care.

“We acquired the Aquilion ONE ViSION Edition when we were developing our protocol to evaluate patients who present with chest pain at Lancaster General Hospital. As a busy medical center, we needed a versatile system that could provide diagnostic images in a wide range of patients without compromising our workflow. The system’s 16 cm of coverage and ability to accurately image an entire organ like the heart in a single heart beat makes this possible in a majority of patients,” said Ron Jacob M.D., director of the cardiac MRI program at The Heart Group of Lancaster General Health/Penn Medicine. “These features were helpful in our research study to develop a workflow that allowed for outpatient CT myocardial perfusion studies to be performed safely and efficiently at Lancaster General Health/Penn Medicine. CT myocardial perfusion has the potential to provide additional information which can change management in patients who present with chest pain and are found to have intermediate coronary lesions.”

Aquilion ONE technology is designed to provide an array of unique benefits for cardiac care:

• Images the Heart in a Single Rotation: Produces high-quality images and fast workflow by capturing the entire heart in one rotation with 640 slices
• Accommodates More Patients: Can image bariatrics and those with high heart rates with a gantry rotation of 0.275 seconds and a large bore (78 cm)
• Captures Anatomy and Function: The system’s lesion visualization and myocardial perfusion capability allow clinicians to visualize and quantify myocardial ischemia with a single CT exam
• Safer Exams: Ensuring that CT dose and safety is not a choice clinicians have to make, Toshiba Medical’s third-generation iterative dose reconstruction software, AIDR 3D, offers simplified dose reduction that produces the image quality needed for diagnosis at low dose

“Aquilion ONE technology is designed to offer customers like Lancaster General Hospital a complete CT solution for any clinical need, from high-quality routine exams to research that can transform the patient experience,” said Dominic Smith, senior director, CT, PET/CT, and MR Business Units, Toshiba America Medical Systems, Inc. “The system’s advanced technology and patient-friendly features allow healthcare providers to deliver confident diagnoses and exceptional care for all patients.”

Dr. Jacob will present cases of CT myocardial perfusion performed at Lancaster General Health/Penn Medicine during a symposium at this year’s Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography (SCCT) annual meeting in Washington, D.C., on July 8, 2017 at 12:15 p.m. (Independence D, Level M2, Marriott Marquis).