CT scanner to be fully operational within four months
Faro Hospital unveiled today a new “state-of-the-art” CT scanner which uses spectral imaging technology and is due to be fully operational within the next four months.
The device will produce “higher quality exams” which take less time and submit patients to “lower doses of radiations,” the president of the Algarve University Hospital Centre (CHUA) told Lusa news agency.
According to Ana Varges Gomes, it is the first CT scanner of this kind to be put to use in Portugal’s National Health Service (SNS).
The CT scanner represented a €1.5 million investment, with 60% being covered by community funding and the remainder by CHUA.
Varges Gomes believes that the device – which will take between 90 and 120 days to be installed – will also help attract researchers and health professionals to the Algarve, a region where they are desperately needed.
“(The device) will allow us to carry out research projects in various areas of knowledge, and we believe that this type of investment also attracts more people, not only healthcare professionals to the region but also other researchers,” Gomes added.
While some CT scanners with spectral imaging technology are already used in the SNS, the director of the radiology department at CHUA said that none of them boast the same “characteristics of this particular high-end equipment.”
“It is indeed the first of its kind,” said Jorge Brito, explaining that one of its biggest benefits is its ability to detect and better characterise lesions.
“In other words, we can more easily detect a lesion and then have a better understanding of what that lesion is,” the radiology director said.
This new CT scanner can also be used for examinations that were not previously performed at CHUA, helping avoid the use of catheterisation (introduction of a catheter into a blood vessel) during the diagnostic phase.
“We may not have to perform catheterisation precisely because it will be possible to evaluate the coronary arteries with this equipment in a non-invasive way,” added Jorge Brito.
The machine will be installed outside of the current radiology department, which consists of 11 specialists (eight radiologists and three neuroradiologists).
“I hope that this will be the embryo for a new hub for our radiology department,” Brito said.
