Suffering from heart ailment? Read this

Capable of capturing movements of the heart in as few as five beats, a new Computed Tomography scanner promises to maintain high-quality images as well as reduce a patient's exposure to radiation by 70 per cent.

The CT scanner, launched in Chicago on Monday by GE, Healthcare, a division of the General Electric, will be a huge help for countries like India, which have a large population suffering from heart ailments.

"The Light Speed scanner, CT XT, provides clarity, additional information and helps to generate confident physician diagnoses while reducing radiation exposure," Gene Saragnese, Vice-President and General Manager of GE Healthcare's CT and Molecular Imaging Business, told media persons.

In the usual cardiac exams, the X-ray is on for the duration of a scan, even during periods when a patient's heart is at an undesirable phase, but with this CT scanner there is an automated response to a patient's heart rate, which ensures that the X-ray is only on for the portions of a scan, he said.

"It captures the images of the heart and coronary arteries in as few as five heartbeats," he said.

According to Shrinivas B Desai, Director Department of Imaging and Interventional Radiology in Jaslok Hospital in Mumbai, the CT scan could be of great use for India. World Health Organisation figures say India will have 60 million cardiac patients by 2015.

"Radiation is a big issue worldwide. If the toxic effect to the patient goes down, it is a great benefit to him," Desai told PTI.

He said the Volume CT scanner, which was launched last year by GE Healthcare, is a non-invasive technology, which brings down the cost of the total expenditure a patient incurs.

"The patients benefit is huge -- to be able to reduce the dose by up to 70 per cent in some cases really changes the paradigm on how radiologists will approach patients who are presenting with different degrees of risk factors," James Earls of Fairfax Radiological Consultants said.

"Based on over 100 patients scanned with the new system, we were able to obtain high-image quality for a wide range of patients sizes while the average radiation dose was about 5 mSv with a range of 1 to 9 mSv," another medico, Jean-Louis Sablayrolles, said.

"Several million patients come to the Emergency Department with chest pain, but only a fraction actually has a heart attack. Finding out the cause of the chest pain is lengthy and expensive process. But with the CT scanner, the images are not only high-quality, but it also has the potential to provide cost-effective method to assist physicians in ruling out three life threatening critical conditions -- cornonary artery disease, pulmonary embolism and aartic dissection. All this is done in just 12 seconds. It is like a dream come true for a patient," Desai said.