Last April 29, Canon Medical Systems USA, Inc, launched “deployable CT solutions and rapid decontamination” to help hospitals that are screening and caring for patients suspected to be positive or confirmed to be infected with COVID-19.
This may also be helpful in the isolation and imaging of patients who may be suffering from other viral infectious diseases.
This new deployable system involves the Aquilion Prime SP. This CT system offers the following benefits, among many others:
● Hit multiple anatomical areas within one breath-hold and one contrast injection
● Give healthcare workers access to the patient from the front and rear of the gantry
● Can be installed in most existing CT rooms
According to Canon Medical, the Aquilion Prime SP system “can generate 160 unique slices per rotation with 0.35-second scanning, reducing the time required to perform studies for compromised patients, and also increase throughput.” This makes the system useful even in emergency cases.
In Canon Medical’s new offering, the Aquilion Prime SP CT system can be used in a modular or mobile footprint with a rapid decontamination tool. This assures rapid imaging, safe handling of patients, complete isolation (even from other hospital staff), and necessary decontamination.
According to Diagnostic Imaging in an article written by Whitney J. Palmer, “In most cases, based on industry guidance, a CT scanner has been decommissioned for roughly an hour between scanning patients to minimize the likelihood of viral transmission.”
An hour can already be the length of a church service. If we recall the story of Patient 31, after she attended two services at her church in South Korea, she ended up infecting 1,160 people as of March 20.
Hospitals and healthcare workers do not have the luxury of an hour to make sure their CT scanner is ready for another patient — not in a time like now with its demands.
Canon Medical addresses this with its system that can be decontaminated in minutes, with the use of an automated ultraviolet light system. “Imaging infectious disease patients is not a new phenomenon for medical providers,” said Erin Angel, managing director, CT Business Unit, Canon Medical Systems USA, Inc, in a statement.
“But our customers are facing an unprecedented number of potentially contagious patients,” he continued. “Our deployable CT offerings with the addition of rapid UV-C decontamination will offer providers a unique solution to help improve their workflow and safety as they image infectious disease patients.”
Simply put, Canon Medical’s decontamination system is an automated UV-C technology that significantly reduces bacteria, spores, and viruses. It is effective against a variety of advanced viral infectious diseases. It is readily available for new CT solutions as well as existing imaging suites.
The system’s multiple automated UV-C emitters work together to provide decontamination of the room in minutes, a big factor especially with a virus as quick to spread as SARS-CoV-2 (this is the official name that the World Health Organization gave the coronavirus or the virus that causes COVID-19).
