New CT scanner at Apollo can capture image between heartbeats

CHENNAI: Health Minister C Vijayabaskar on Wednesday inaugurated a state-of-the-art CT scanner that can be used in non-invasive cardiac assessment for patients. It is a Aquilion One Prism 640-slice  CT scanner, one of the latest medical technologies, and has significantly higher diagnostic power and visualisation ability of the heart and other organs.

“Increasing the focus on preventing non-communicable diseases is extremely crucial to reducing the State’s disease burden. The pandemic has shown us that controlling NCD goes a long way in preventing infectious diseases as well. Having such state-of-the-art technology will significantly improve diagnostic ability of the State,” Vijayabaskar said.

Speaking at the launch, Prathap C Reddy, founder and chairman of Apollo Hospitals Group, said the scanner will make world-class treatment available for people at a fraction of the cost. Stating that a quarter of all deaths in India is due to cardiovascular complications, Reddy said this machine will facilitate early diagnosis. “The speed of the scanner gives rapid answers and patients no longer need to wait for hours,” he said.

The novel CT scanner is quick enough to take an image in between two heart beats, he said, adding that it can be used to study and scan other organs too. The scanner reduces the diagnosis time of a stroke from 30 minutes to five minutes. It also offers a noninvasive method to detect early coronary artery disease, a statement said.