Recently, Bangalore Hospitals in Bengaluru launched the 640-Slice CT Scan Imaging Technology, the first such in India. This innovation is significant for the diagnostic precision provided by this technology, which ensures high-end accuracy and detail in medical imaging in a CT scan.
According to the company authorities, this technology enables the completion of heart scans in just 3 seconds and whole-body scans in 9 seconds, providing a life-saving tool to detect issues swiftly and precisely.
Amid rising concerns about sudden young cardiac deaths, this scan offers a non-invasive, rapid, and safe solution to identify potential cardiac problems before they escalate, enabling timely intervention and saving lives.
"We are raising the bar in healthcare with the adoption of 640 Slice CT's ability to acquire comprehensive images faster," said Dr Lahari Surapaneni, CEO, Bangalore Hospitals.
The 640 Slice CT can also be termed as a non-invasive cardiac angiogram, particularly for patients with chest pain and patients who are at high risk for a heart attack, said medical experts. This machine gives high-quality and high-resolution coronary angiograms as well as peripheral angiograms, which are non-invasive screening tests that help in ruling out blockages of arteries in high-risk individuals such as those with longstanding diabetes, a history of smoking as well as those with family history of cardiac deaths.
In an academic paper published in the Journal of International Medical Research, authors carried out a study to compare the feasibility of 640-slice with 64-slice computed tomography (CT) coronary angiography for diagnosing coronary lesions in patients with pacemakers.
They carried out the research in 45-50 patients with pacemakers and with suspected or known coronary artery disease who underwent 64-slice (64 group) and 640-slice (640 group) CT scans, respectively.
The results showed a high diagnosable rate for coronary lesions, as much as 98.91% in the 640 group, as against 94.19% in the 64-Slice group. Among patients with pacemakers and a higher heart rate or heart arrhythmia, it was found that 640-slice CT may be more effective than 64-slice CT for diagnosing coronary lesions, by reducing moderate and severe artifacts, the authors of the study noted.
Technological advances in 640-slice CT image acquisition mean that CT coronary angiography can now be conducted in these patients. The current results showed that 640-slice CT significantly reduced image artefacts and increased the incidence of diagnosable images in these patients compared with 64-slice CT.
Furthermore, 640-slice CT adopts a cross-sectional volume scanning method and the scanning bed thus remains stationary during the data acquisition, allowing complete volume data to be obtained for each scan.