Bassett Acquires More Advanced CT Scanner

COOPERSTOWN – Bassett Hospital has announced acquisition of an advanced 128-slice CT scanner, saying it will more effectively detect and treat heart disease, cancer, stroke, lung disease and other life-threatening ailments.

“This technology will translate into less procedure time for patients with sharper, more detailed images,” said Dr. James Peters, chief of radiology. “In addition, the new scanner uses technology that allows for the most appropriate radiation exposure for each patient examination. So we’re ensuring our patients get the absolute minimum dose necessary.”

During a CT exam, the patient is placed on a table and moved incrementally through the donut-shaped scanner while an X-ray beam is projected through cross sections of their anatomy. The information from the X-ray is sent to a specialized computer that reconstructs the information into individual slices and combines them sequentially into pictures of the entire area scanned.

The 128-slice CT, also referred to as fast CT, captures high resolution, three-dimensional pictures of a moving heart and the blood vessels. This enables us to detect blocked arteries and coronary artery disease in the early stages without having to put every patient through a more invasive cardiac catheterization.

The new CT will also be used for interventional procedures such as CT guided biopsies. With regard to cancer, fast CT allows us to do more than just monitor changes in the size of a tumor; we can also determine how a patient is responding to therapy by observing the perfusion of a contrast agent as it moves around and through a tumor.