'We're fully digital now': New diagnostic imaging equipment for QEH

Two new and expensive pieces of diagnostic equipment have arrived and are already in useat the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

The hospital's new SPECT Camera and CT, along with and a state of the art X-ray suitehave been operational since June.

"SPECT stands for Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography, which enables us to go around the patient and produce images through slices at different angles for the physician to look at, so it gives you the whole body through," explained nuclear medicine technologist CorrineBell.

'Fusion or hybrid imaging'

The SPECTCamera with CT unit works quickly, producing a sharper, more detailed image than previouslyin just a matter of minutes.

"Two units in one. It's called fusion or hybrid imaging.Nuclear medicine has kind of changed now. We're called molecular imaging because we're using a radioactive component."

It meansless time patient have to spend in the room.

"The GAMMA camera's very sensitive and the CT camera enhances specificity, so the radiologist reporting will have an easier time discerning what a sensitive area or a hot spot as we call them on the images would be, so a greater level of detail for diagnosis," saidGailyne MacPherson, provincial director of diagnostic imaging for Health PEI.

'Most accurate diagnosis'

The pieces of equipment cost $1.5 million, paid for by donors in the community.

"It is very important to have the latest equipment to make sure that we give the most accurate diagnosis that we can to patients, andthat we are able to provide the best service that's possible for people," said MacPherson.

With the replacement of the X-ray machine, itmarks the first time the QEHhas been fully digital.

"Definitely having a CT attached to the images gives the physician, the radiologist a much better image," added Bell.

"Orthopedic surgeons doing surgery, we do studies for melanomas where they're taking lymph vessels out, and it gives them the exact position that that lymph vessel is, and that's just one little dot in a whole body. So, now with the CT incorporated, they have actual visual, so they know in their mind's eye exactly where that lesion or where that lymph node is."

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