Insight Healthscan Pvt Ltd, an alliance between the leading radiologists in the country and Value Healthcare Ltd, Mumbai-based healthcare informatics company providing world-class imaging services in the city, have announced the launch of their new Insight Imaging Center, a specialized center for CT Angiogram and early detection of cancer at Gamdevi, central Mumbai.

In doing so, the consortium announced the introduction of the latest wonder screening-machine at the center, Somatom Sensation 16, the multislice CT scan machine from Siemens that would provide a unique and exceptional futuristic multislice technology to aid in precise, preventive and predictive post-operative diagnosis.

For the three renowned radiologists from the alliance that included Dr Omprakash Tavri, Dr Deepak Patkar and Dr Ambrish Dalal from Mumbai, sourcing the new machine would mean availing multifold benefits that was restricted in the earlier model that was only 2D-enabled.

“Multislice CT is a radiologists dream come true”, exclaimed Dr Ambrish Dalal, radiologist and director at Insight Healthscan Pvt Ltd. Images from the multislice scanner are so clear that it could reconstruct any hollow structure in the body such as the esophagus, blood vessels or bowel and can quickly scan inside the structure to find potential problems. This would help in offering the patients a considerably quicker, less risky, less expensive and precise diagnosis, he said.

The Somatom Sensation 16 is the fastest ever machine (40 times faster than the earlier conventional scanners) that would give a complete head-to-toe body scan in under a minute. And being 3D-enabled, it would find multiple uses in detecting several other diseases including diabetes, angiography and bone mineral density.

“The machine is unique as it facilitates Isotropic Imaging which was a neglected asset in other conventional machines”, said Dr Omprakash Tavari. “With the aided technology, the Somatom Sensation 16 would now be able to distinctly uncover multiple conditions such as brain hemorrhage, trauma, tumour and aneurysm which was not possible earlier”, asserted Dr Tavari.

Though the scanner finds multiple applications like for detecting carotid and cerebral angiography; pulmonary, abdominal and peripheral angiographies with excellent 3D reconstructions of bones and joints; dental scanning; delta scanning for osteoporosis and whole body scanning, the machine would be primarily used for CT Angiogram and Early Cancer Detection applications.

In case of CT Angiogram, the multislice CT provides a non-invasive assessment of the presence and degree of coronary artery disease thus avoiding the standard invasive techniques of bypass and angiography. It further aids in conducting tests like calcium scoring, vessel view, post stent evaluation, postoperative evaluation and Argus for left ventricular function.

For early cancer detection, like in the case of colon cancer, the reconstructed luminal view achieved with the rendered CT data has potential to provide additional information in obstructed bowel loops as well. And the procedure being non-invasive, it curbs the risk of colon perforation.

As for detecting lung cancer, CT greatly increases the likelihood of detection of small non-calcified nodules and also the malignant nodules detected on low dose multislice CT are substantially smaller than those detected on conventional CT.