LUTH Acquires Wonder Scanner •Detects Death In 10 Seconds

IF you have just 11 seconds to live, you now have a chance of survival with the latest scanning equipment acquired by the leadership of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) which has capacity to run a check on all organs of the body, from head to toe, in less than 10 seconds and fish out the death points for prompt treatment.

The machine; a 128-slice Aquillon CT scanner is not only the first of its kind in Nigeria but also West Africa.

Speaking on the wonder equipment, the Chief Medical Director, LUTH, Professor Akin Osibogun told the Sunday Tribune in an exclusive interview that the ultra-speed of the scanner is an added advantage, with its ability to pick inner parts of the body while in motion and capturing tiny details that could be fatal.

According to him, “The Aquillon CT scanner is a 128-scanner and the main advantage it has over other CT scanners of earlier generations is its ability to penetrate deeper into the tissues and organs to show clearly the state of those tissues and organs. Of course the CT scanner is an imaging device and because it is able to provide images of tissues and organs inside the body. We are able to see the state in which those tissues and organs are and we are able to make diagnosis that help us to provide appropriate treatment for the patients.

“Earlier generations CT scanners are of course far better in terms of diagnostic capability than the x-ray because they provide clearer definitions than the x-ray but moving to a 128-slice CT scanner, in fact, that it is in terms of where current knowledge is, with regards to ability to get clearer images of tissues and organs that are internal to the body and therefore we are able to make better diagnosis. A further advantage of the 128-CT scanner is its speed with which it works and that means it is able to capture parts of the body that are in motion.

“So the Aquillon CT scanner is a very fast machine, able to pick items in motion and that advantage enables us now to study even the heart as it is beating and as it is pumping out blood, so we are able to study the arteries, the veins as the blood flow through them, so if there is a thin blockage or a blockage is developing, the scanner is able to pick it.”

“So in coronary heart disease for instance, the scanner is a vast advantage over other imaging devices because we are able to pick them up early and we can then advise that patient on dietary changes or whatever changes that are necessary and if you have the capability, you can actually combine it with what we called interventional cardiology.

“You can remove small plague or small particles that are already forming on the way. It is just simply by introducing a catheter, you guide the catheter under the imaging device and go to where you want to go and remove what you want to remove, without opening the chest. The CT scanner can be combined to some extent with the interventional cardiology which we would introduce at a latter point. At this point because we just acquired the equipment, we will be using it largely for diagnostic methods to pick disease conditions and do that in a more precise manner.”

Commenting about possible kidney transplant in Nigeria, he noted that the procedure was possible at the hospital with just N3 million but the donor must be a relative of the patient.

“Maybe if you help us make that public, that all they need to do, is to bring a relative who is willing to donate kidneys to them and with N3 million, we work them up, carry out the transplant and follow them up” he stated