Avera St. Luke’s Adds Advanced CT System

Avera St. Luke’s Hospital has added an advanced, premium diagnostic system to help physicians reach confident diagnoses and provide a higher level of patient care. The computed tomography (CT) scanner can lower the radiation dose while maintaining high quality images throughout the body and has the capability to reconstruct images at up to 128 slices.

CT technology,is the diagnostic exam of choice when people are ill or injured, or when a physician suspects a medical problem that isn’t easily detectable with a conventional physical examination. A CT scan combines a series of X-ray views taken from many different angles to produce cross-sectional images of the bones and soft tissues. The images can be compared to a loaf of sliced bread. Your doctor will be able to look at each of these slices individually or perform additional visualization to make 3-D images

“The addition of the GE Healthcare LightSpeed VCT XTe complements and extends the range of quality diagnostic services that Avera St. Luke’s offers area residents,” said Lee Ann Tople, director of Diagnostic and Therapeutic Services at Avera St. Luke’s. “It provides us a higher level of diagnostic confidence at significantly lower radiation dose with the new technology.”

A new, advanced image reconstruction technique called ASiR (Adaptive Statistical Iterative Reconstruction) makes it possible to dramatically reduce radiation dose to patients without compromising the quality of the image.  “This is especially beneficial for children and young adults who are more susceptible to harm from excessive radiation exposures,” Tople says. The new CT system can also provide in-depth brain and cardiac techniques that make these tests more reliable and enable doctors to have more confidence in their diagnosis. 

Avera St. Luke’s has two CT scanners in the hospital, plus one in the hospital’s Imaging Center in Avera St. Luke’s Healthcare Plaza. Avera St. Luke’s Cancer Care Center will also be adding a CT system soon.