CT Scan

Guidance for a CT scan

Introducing CT Techniques

To be equipped at Medic in March 1995, TOSHIBA' s CT Scanner (Computed Tomography) TCT300EZ has served over 12.000 turns of patients.

Since January of 1999 a new CT Scanner and its software Toshiba Xtension V2.01 Models TXT-01A/4A, TXT-01B/4A (2B201-188E*B) has been operated at Medic. This is new model of CT Scanner in the field of Multiplanar Reconstruction and Three-dimension images reconstruction, especially Shaded color 3D Image. Toshiba Xtension is a Workstation that processes images for MRI as well as CT. Since January to October of 1999, Helical CT Scanner has processed 73 cases.

Guidance for a CT scan

Appointment
In medicine there are innumerable tests which may be innocent, expensive or dangerous. You yourself can't decide which test is a need for you. In many cases, a test is not enough to reach a conclusion; doctors must combine a lot of things or test a lot of times before coming to an exact conclusion. You should understand that there is no means which can completely replace the doctors whose brain, sense of responsibility and conscience are invaluable.   
When you want to do any investigation, you must have the appointment paper of your doctors. Because only the doctors know your disease and which tests are in need to make a diagnosis. So you can go to see a doctor at a private surgery, a hospital or right to Medic or Medic's CT department; then you will have the necessary appointment paper for a test and be diagnosed via images.                   
When having already had the appointment paper for a CT scan, you can contact Medic for an appointment or more information.

CT Department, Medic Medical Center
254 Hoa Hao, District  10, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Tel: 8355 063, 8357 284, 8906 572 - Fax: 8331 237

Cost        
In many cases, investigations are done without injecting  any contrast medicine because the films are clear enough to diagnose; for example: brain skull traumas and bone investigations. Contrast medicine is used to brighten harm parts or make clear the quality of harm parts. To every disease, apart from the first CT scan without the injection of contrast medicine, you can have to do one more CT scan  with contrast medicine for injection.
According to the officially prices by Health Ministry, a CT investigation without injecting contrast medicine costs about 1,000,000 VND (one million dong) and 1,200,000 VND (one million and two hundred thousand dong). Those are the prices for the investigation of an organ which is 30cm long such as head, lung, belly or any part of arm or leg.

Preparation
- When coming here for a CT scan, you should carry the summary of medical history, test, X-rays, ultrasound, etc. results because they are very helpful to an exact CT result.
- To some heavy patients, it's a need for a doctor or a nurse to accompany them.
- Each investigated part and pathology will have suitable preparations.
- If injecting contrast medicine isn't necessary, there aren't any special preparations.
- If injecting contrast medicine is necessary, patients shouldn't eat solid food 4 hours before to prevent from vomiting or choking. Patients can drink water or milk before doing a CT scan. (Note: don't abstain from water, don't let the patients lack of water).
- When investigating the abdomens but patients' abdomens have baryt, scanner will make false images. So a CT scan can be done before scanning a stomach or large intestine; or the patients will be pumped and drained away the baryt before doing a CT.
- To some diseases, you may have to drink much water, take contrast medicine, pump and drain, pump medicine into the anus, mark the skin, put tampon in the vagina, etc. before doing a CT scan. Medic's officers will serve you.
- After doing a CT scan with contrast medicine, you will be watched at least 30 minutes out of the CT room in order to prevent slow medicine reaction.

Results
Although you receive the film and the result report which show the technique investigation, description, and result or the thought of the X-ray doctors, please know that these film and result report are only for  the doctor's use. This result will help your doctors in treating you. You should know that some unusual marks on the film don't or not show a clinical mark yet; on the contrary, some clinical marks don't help to find the cause of the harm. You should not pay much attention to the result report, let your doctor deal with it.
If you need a result report in foreign languages, or a photo of the film (for example, one for the hospital where you are being treated, one to send abroad; please inform the doctors so that X-ray department will do these at the same time. If you inform late, it's very difficult or impossible to give you a photo of good quality. 

The Development of CT Technique 

Last ten years, medical image diagnosing field has made great advances by far the advances during the past hundreds of years.

As from W.C. Roentgen found X-ray in 1895, not until 1970 CT scanner could help us penetrate each structure accurately to centimeter,  and let out a secret about some diseases of some organs that we were still confused before such as skull, liver structure, etc. CT is an abbreviation for Computed Tomography. Computed Tomography is a method in which we use a computer to scan each slice of image; generally speaking, watching a CT film is just like holding a slice of apple pie and considering whether it has much kernel or not.

Spiral CT scanner is invented in 1989, this scanner can turn round continuously and scan at the same time. After only a breath, it can investigate an organ or a part of blood vessel. So that it can not omit any harms even if the harms are very small or they go up and down for the breath. If we use a conventional CT scanner in the above cases, it's very easy to omit the harms.


General View of CT Scan
CT has developed over 20 years to reduce its time of scanning and taking images; increasing image disintegration and contrast rate. About mid the eighth decade, a lot of people thought that CT was really perfect. In fact, there were still a lot of problems that CT scanners of that day could not solve; for example, it was impossible to see all benign as well as pernicious harms in a liver; the analysis of pancreas liver rate was not the optimal; the investigation  of blood vessel in the kidney, the blood vessel pathologies in brain or the harms in the form of small pimples in lung were still missed out.

Spiral CT scanner can deal with all the above problems, it takes the image of all part of body because its light-head emits  x-ray while turning round the investigated part of body continuously. Thanks to using cog-wheels instead of electric cables; the light-head has the ability of heat-resistant, sensors are supersensitive and high-ranking algorithm recreates images and adjusts the move of the table.

Presently, there are current intensity automatic-aligning programs when the CT scanner sweeps over each part of body to lower the heat and strengthen the light-head longevity. There are also programs which can consider the best time to inject contrast medicine automatically before scanning. The light-head is durable more and more, the sensors are sensitive more and more as well. The machine creates three-dimensional images, and turns every directions  in the space so that it can show all the angles of the harms and it can even show the changes inside the vein as if we are walking inside and observe it or we are looking through a hole on the skull to investigate the harms.

CT also directly takes part in treating such as taking an orientated biopsy by CT  to diagnose pathology after biopsy, fixing the exact co-ordinate of the harms to emit x-ray to annihilate the cancer. At some large centers, doctors can operate or investigate bodies according to the reality image or investigate real moves thanks to the very quick speed of the CT scanners. 

CT is very helpful to the doctors, especially surgeons; CT is also very convenient for training new generation students. We can combine it with  endoscopy and use robot in investigating and treating. Understanding strong as well as weak points of CT techniques and clinical applications is very essential for diagnosing and treating in the present and the near future.

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