At great expense, a new CT was placed in the Friedberger Bürgerhospital that offers significant improvements. It will later move to Bad Nauheim.
Significantly improved blood flow imaging in the brain (for example after strokes), lung cancer screenings and generally very precise, high-resolution images with lower radiation exposure and shorter examination times are the advantages of the new Philips-CT 5300 computer tomograph, which was recently installed in the Friedberg Citizens’ Hospital. It replaces the previously existing device there. After the new building at the Hochwald Hospital in Bad Nauheim is completed, the new CT will move there.
Extensive preparatory work required
In the run-up to installation, the operational and medical technology at the Wetterau Health Center (GZW) carried out tailor-made work in close coordination with doctors, the respective department heads and the management. They coordinated the tender and took over planning and project management independently. A tight project schedule was drawn up in advance and then implemented within two weeks – this was important in view of the fact that CT examinations had to be outsourced for the interim period.
The schedule was divided into three project steps: dismantling the existing CT, installing the new CT as well as TÜV acceptance and application training with limited patient operation.
A new CT power distributor had to be created and a new supply line with a sufficient cross-section had to be laid from the main power distribution into the CT technical room. The task was to drill through the one meter thick reinforced concrete from 1977, a challenging task that caused the core hole drill to burn out three times. In view of the higher waste heat of the new CT, the cooling capacity available also had to be increased.
GZW Betriebstechnik also installed new LED ceiling lights, replaced defective switches and sockets, installed new cable ducts and impact protection profiles, adjusted ceiling elements and laid a new linoleum floor across the entire area. The worn edges of the aging radiation protection doors were fitted with new aluminum profiles that have a radiation-absorbing effect. And because the new CT was to be positioned at a different location in the room than its predecessor, the floor had to be pry open in order to set up a new cable duct.
Important time window is being extended
The new CT was eagerly awaited in the stroke unit of the Bürgerhospital. “The existing CT has shown us whether a stroke has developed or not. The big advantage of the new perfusion CT is that it can also show the blood flow situation in the affected brain tissue. In this way, we can better see how large the areas of the brain at risk of a stroke are and how their size relates to brain tissue that has already been irreversibly destroyed. In this way, emergency therapy can still be carried out for certain patients even if the time window actually intended for this has already closed. This is, for example “This is important for patients who only realize that they have suffered a stroke after waking up and therefore cannot say how long the symptoms have existed,” explains private lecturer Florian Roessler, head physician at the GZW stroke ward.
In certain cases, the new technology could increase the so-called lysis window, the period during which medical intervention to dissolve the blood clot that triggers a stroke is possible without risking potentially life-threatening bleeding. Previously, the lysis window was limited to four and a half hours after the stroke.
In addition, the images from the new CT can even be used to identify diseases whose symptoms are similar to those of a stroke. “We can better differentiate whether a certain symptom is due to a stroke or, for example, to an epileptic seizure.”
