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Hospital unveils new radiology tools
By Ruth Campbell
Staff Writer
Published: Wednesday, November 4, 2009 6:58 PM CST
New equipment in Midland Memorial Hospital’s interventional radiology department should give patients faster treatment time and their doctors clearer images.
Radiology charge nurse Tiffany Hansen said interventional radiologists do surgery under X-ray guidance and can work on — or take pictures of — any organ or vessel other than the heart.
Dr. Larry Edwards said interventional radiologists are often called on by other doctors to do biopsies, insert stents or do tumor ablations where tumors are fried from the inside out.
The new equipment, purchased from Philips by Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center for $1.5 million, was feted with an open house at the main campus Wednesday. It will largely replace a 12-year-old unit. The older unit will be used as back up.
Along with Edwards, Hansen said other interventional radiologists are Drs. Greg Keck and James Philipps. Nurses and radiology technologists round out the staff, she said.The equipment will let physicians detect harder to find lesions and save patients more aggressive procedures, Edwards said.
With fewer images, Hansen said, patients are subject to less radiation.
“I think it’s wonderful,” Edwards said. “It represents a significant increase in the level of technology and the ability to obtain quality images from our previous equipment. It’s like a giant toy that helps us work through a catheter or a needle rather than a large incision. It gives us a sequence of X-rays of a patient like a movie and we can watch a segment over and over again.”
Interventional radiologists are called on by other doctors to do biopsies, look at arteries anywhere other than the heart, complicated vascular access and tumor ablation — putting special needles inside tumors to fry them from the inside, Dr. Larry Edwards said during an open house to show off the new device.
Director of Radiology Kelly White said an anonymous donor recently helped pay for the construction, which took five months. First used in mid-October, the equipment is used on an average of eight patients a day and some 200 a month, White and Radiology Nurse Manager Linell Nixon said.
Edwards said this brings interventional radiology up to par with the rest of the X-ray equipment. “This was the one department where we’ve lagged a bit in getting the next generation (of devices),” he said. “In all other areas, we’re pretty much state of the art.”
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Ruth Campbell can be reached by e-mail at ruth@mrt.com Read more:
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