The Hindu : MCH CT scanner develops snag

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 04, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Kerala-Thiruvananthapuram

MCH CT scanner develops snag

By M. Dinesh Varma

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM May 3. The whole body spiral Computerised Tomography (CT) scan machine went in limbo for the second time in a week, piling up the backlog of investigation requests of patients in the Casualty and in-patients in the wards at the Medical College Hospital (MCH) here.

The CT equipment which had developed a software error earlier had been set aright by a service engineer a couple of days back before the machine developed the same problem on Thursday. The scan machine was repaired once again on Friday morning and diagnosticians are keeping their fingers crossed that the problem does not resurface yet again.

According to sources, one of the chief reasons for the machine frequently developing snags is the overload that the sophisticated equipment, the first to be installed in the Government sector in the State.

Though the tube usually carries a guarantee for 40,000 slices, often the Radiotherapy unit stretches the number of scans taken on a single tube to almost 1.50 lakh slices a year.

It is also pointed out that once a tube goes bust, a replacement is not promptly procured. There have been instances when the machine was in a state of dysfunction for months owing to the delay in procuring a tube replacement.

Requests for head scans of accident victims reporting at the Casualty form the bulk of the investigative procedures. The radiotherapy unit also undertakes body, chest and abdomen scans besides CT angiography.

Sources in the Radio diagnosis department also point out that the painstaking process of taking a CT scan for a patient at the Medical College is also contributing the burnout of the equipment. For instance, as many as 50 slices are exhausted for a routine request for an abdomen scan. The cross-sections of an abdomen are taken at three levels- plain contrast, oral contrast and UV contrast.

While a head scan can be completed and a report made available in under half an hour, scan procedures for the body and chest to track down lesions that normally are missed in a conventional CT imagery, can take hours to complete, sources said. It is also pointed out that the equipment is totally relied upon by poor patients. Under the present scheme, 30 per cent of all scans are conducted free of charge for the poor patients

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