1:15pm | The Long Beach Memorial Hospital became only one of three hospitals in California to install the AquilionTM ONE dynamic volume computed tomography (CT) system.
CT scans, commonly called ‘CAT scans,’ are computer-created images that provide doctors and researches a glance inside the human body. What distinguishes this particular system away from typical CT systems lies in its name — dynamic volume — which refers to the fact that a entire single organ can be scanned in one gantry rotation. For example, older CT scans of hearts were often hard to analyze if the patient had an arrhythmia due to the multiple rotations required to get a complete image — not to mention the increased radiation the patient would receive.
Even more impressively, in less than a second, it can detect blockages in the heart and brain forming in blood vessels no bigger than a toothpick. This is essential for patients experiencing strokes, serious heart conditions, and other life-threatening diseases while simultaneously reducing health care costs by replacing multiple tests with a single examination process.
Along with this, since Miller Children’s Hospital Long Beach is located on the same campus as Long Beach Memorial, child patients now have a CT scan option that is accessible for them and less intrusive — taking hours down to simple minutes.