If you have just 11 seconds to live, you now have
a chance of survival with the latest scanning
equipment. Lagos University Teaching Hospital
LUTH said they have acquired a CT scan
equipment that has the capacity to run a check on
all organs of the body, from head to toe in less
than 10 seconds and fish out a patients death
points for immediate treatment. The machine,
called the 128-slice Aquillon CT scanner is the first
of it's kind in West Africa.Speaking on the
machine, the Chief Medical Director, LUTH,
Professor Akin Osibogun told Nigerian Tribune:
"The Aquillon CT scanner is a 128-scanner and the
main advantage it has over other CT scanners of
earlier generations is its ability to penetrate
deeper into the tissues and organs to show clearly
the state of those tissues and organs. Of course
the CT scanner is an imaging device and because
it is able to provide images of tissues and organs
inside the body. We are able to see the state in
which those tissues and organs are and we are
able to make diagnosis that help us to provide
appropriate treatment for the patients.
"Earlier generations CT scanners are of course far
better in terms of diagnostic capability than the x-
ray because they provide clearer definitions than
the x-ray but moving to a 128-slice CT scanner, in
fact, that it is in terms of where current knowledge
is, with regards to ability to get clearer images of
tissues and organs that are internal to the body
and therefore we are able to make better
diagnosis. A further advantage of the 128-CT
scanner is its speed with which it works and that
means it is able to capture parts of the body that
are in motion.
"So the Aquillon CT scanner is a very fast
machine, able to pick items in motion and that
advantage enables us now to study even the heart
as it is beating and as it is pumping out blood, so
we are able to study the arteries, the veins as the
blood flow through them, so if there is a thin
blockage or a blockage is developing, the scanner
is able to pick it."
"So in coronary heart disease for instance, the
scanner is a vast advantage over other imaging
devices because we are able to pick them up
early and we can then advise that patient on
dietary changes or whatever changes that are
necessary and if you have the capability, you can
actually combine it with what we called
interventional cardiology.
"You can remove small plague or small particles
that are already forming on the way. It is just
simply by introducing a catheter, you guide the
catheter under the imaging device and go to
where you want to go and remove what you want
to remove, without opening the chest. The CT
scanner can be combined to some extent with the
interventional cardiology which we would
introduce at a latter point. At this point because
we just acquired the equipment, we will be using
it largely for diagnostic methods to pick disease
conditions and do that in a more precise manner."
Commenting about possible kidney transplant in
Nigeria, LUTH Chief MD said that the procedure
was possible at the hospital with just N3 million
but the donor must be a relative of the patient.
"Maybe if you help us make that public, that all
they need to do, is to bring a relative who is
willing to donate kidneys to them and with N3
million, we work them up, carry out the transplant
and follow them up" he stated.
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