Imaging technology is constantly changing and evolving. This is particularly good news for radiologists and their patients. The Mount Sinai Medical Center found out just how good when it recently began using a new cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) camera to perform cardiac nuclear imaging studies.
In an interview with Tech Edge, Milena J. Henzlova, M.D., professor of medicine (cardiology) at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, said that the camera has made the department more efficient—decreasing exposure time by about five-fold, thus increasing throughput—and cutting radiation exposure by 40% to 60%.
Because many of the cardiac patients are older or ill, Henzlova said that it wasn’t unusual to have to retake the exams using the previous system, which required exposures up to 20 minutes. She also noted that the lower dose rate is an important improvement as coronary disease continues to be treated at a younger age and using numerous modalities, making decreasing radiation exposure over time important.
But the pay off of using the CZT camera isn’t only for the patients. As a cardiologist, Henzlova sees a distinct improvement: “I think the images are better.”
Mount Sinai’s system is from GE Healthcare and includes focused pin-hole collimation for improved detecting efficiency, resulting in greater image clarity and speed; stationary data acquisition, which acquires all views simultaneously during a fully stationary SPECT acquisition, virtually eliminating motion artifacts and shortening scan times; and 3D reconstruction.
