Community Medical Center is celebrating the hospital’s acquisition of a 64-slice Computed Tomography (CT) system that provides highly detailed images of the human body. According to Gary Andrews, director of CMC’s Diagnostic Imaging department, the new CT scanner is state-of-the-art, innovative technology.

CMC's new LightSpeed Volume Computed Tomography scanner, manufactured by GE Healthcare, provides physicians with high-resolution images in a fraction of the time previously required, allowing them to more accurately diagnose a wider variety of patient conditions.

"This CT gives us the ability to apply CT imaging to a wider set of clinical applications," Andrews said. "It also reduces the radiation dose a patient experiences."

The addition of the 64-slice CT scanner extends the range of diagnostic services that CMC offers its service area of Western Montana and portions of Idaho. "It provides us with vastly improved image quality and imaging speed, and enhances the overall diagnostic confidence we have in all our studies," Andrews said, adding that the new system will allow the department to perform studies such as CT angiography, cardiology, and CT colonography.

Three CT technologists from CMC’s Diagnostic Imaging department attended intensive training at GE Healthcare’s Training Headquarters in Milwaukee, Wis. Additional applications training was provided at CMC during the week of April 17, with follow-up training scheduled in the weeks ahead. Diagnostic Imaging began scheduling patients for the new CT on April 17.

Originally developed in the 1970s, CT or “CAT” scans combine the power of X-ray technology and computers, allowing physicians the ability to view thin cross-sections of the internal anatomy without the need for exploratory surgery. The LightSpeed Volume CT is the fifth evolution of GE Healthcare’s LightSpeed CT platform, the CT scanning system that revolutionized the industry in 1998.

CT exams are used when people are ill or injured, or when a physician suspects a medical problem that is not easily detectable from a conventional physical examination. CMC’s new 64-slice scanner non-invasively assists physicians in the diagnosis of a variety of anatomical areas, such as the spine, head, abdomen and chest, including detailed imaging of the heart.