GE LightSpeed CT Scanner Has First Installation
ZICHRON YA’AKOV, Israel—GE Medical Systems has completed the first installation of the GE CT LightSpeed computed tomography multi-slice scanner in Israel. The LightSpeed imaging scanner system, which GE says is six times faster than traditional single-slice CT scanners, was installed in B’nai Zion Medical Center, serving patients in northern Israel.
This is the first CT LightSpeed in Israel. The product was developed at a cost of $60 million to serve the $1.6 billion global computed tomography (CT) market. An estimated 50 million CT exams are performed annually around the world, 28 million in the United States and an estimated 500,000 in Israel.
According to Elisha Barmeir, director of the radiology department at B’nai Zion Medical Center, the system may revolutionize the diagnosis of colon cancer. "Colon cancer is the third most common cancer in Israel," he said. "Now, for the first time, colon cancer can be screened and diagnosed virtually, in a noninvasive fashion. Faster examinations also are more comfortable for the patient and allow the performance of more examinations per month." A whole body scan can be completed in approximately 20 seconds. In emergency situations, the time saved can be critical.
A key to the scanner’s performance, and a fundamental contribution of the Six Sigma quality methodology, is a newly designed and advanced solid-state CT detector that enables the system to simultaneously scan multiple adjacent slices of the anatomy in less than 1 second—the time it takes for the X-ray source to rotate around the patient. Developed by a team from GE Medical Systems and the GE Research and Development Center, the new matrix detector is able to capture 16 times more anatomical information in a single scan than the best existing technology. This design will permit future improvements to decrease the patient’s scan time even further.
"The LightSpeed scanner is one more example of GE’s technology and market leadership in CT," says S. Morry Blumenfeld, GE Medical Systems’ Israel managing director. "GE incorporated input from more than 100 customers around the world to make sure the technology was meaningful, not just new. As a result, the LightSpeed delivers not only new clinical applications, but also patient comfort and hospital productivity benefits." He added: "This is just the beginning. The experience of the doctors and technologists at B’nai Zion Medical Center and other centers around the world allow us to continue to improve this system and make it even more useful."
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