94.7 F
San Fernando
Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Boosting Technology

San Fernando Valley hospitals have been acquiring a wide range of cutting-edge technology , from a camera that can detect the smallest of physiological changes to a new kind of disc that can totally replace those in the upper vertebrae. In October, Encino-Tarzana Regional Medical Center obtained the Siemens Symbia Nuclear Medicine Camera. According to Ken Asthon, director of nuclear services at the hospital, Encino-Tarzana is the only medical center in the Valley with such a camera. “It allows us to do diagnostic imaging on patients, and we can see body anatomy and physiology,” Ashton said. “The camera can detect any physiological change, like tumors, any heart defects, infections. These are some of the diagnoses that we can uncover.” Ashton said the camera is much safer for patients. Whereas previously it took nearly two hours to scan patients, with the new camera, the time it takes for a scan has been reduced to less than half. The camera is ideal for patients who are excessively obese, immobile, unable to stay still or suffer from claustrophobia, according to Ashton. “It does different things,” he explained. “It can hold up to a 500-pound patient. We can place a patient in bed and the bed under the camera.” At present, the camera is only in use on the Tarzana campus. A camera for the Encino campus has been purchased and will be installed early next year, Ashton said. At Providence Holy Cross Medical Center, the staff is abuzz over the hospital’s acquisition of the Prestige Cervical Disc. Not only are the discs new at the hospital, they’re new to the marketplace as well, according to Mark Liker, a neurosurgeon on staff at Holy Cross and Northridge Hospital. Liker is also a University of Southern California professor. “It’s a replacement for discs in the neck,” he said of the new cervical discs. “Neck bones are separated by discs which act as shock absorbers. This is something that replaces the disc when it goes bad.” Before physicians had access to such technology, patients with problem discs underwent a procedure called a fusion. “It would fuse the bones together so that there was no range of motion, no movement between those two bones,” Liker explained. As a result patients didn’t have the flexibility they once hand. With the Prestige Cervical Disc, however, movement is unrestricted. Vessel work Glendale Adventist Medical Center has a number of new technologies in use. “We’re actually installing a biplane for one of our special procedures labs, and, basically, that will be used for vessel procedures, where the physician is working with very small vessels in the brain and etc. It can also be used down in the heart,” said Warren Tetz, senior vice president of operations for the hospital. When physicians engage in vessel work to perform procedures involving stints, a biplane gives them the ability to view real time 3-D imaging. “Currently, with a single plane what you get is a view of one side of a vessel,” Tetz explained. “So, what a biplane does is actually have two radiology views taken at two different angles, and a software can convert it into a 3-D real time image.” As with the nuclear medicine camera, the biplane reduces risk for patients because it slices the time of the procedure. The biplane isn’t the only technology that’s new at Glendale Adventist. The hospital is also installing a new imaging device. “We happen to be putting in a Mobile Pet CT to deal with cancer patients that will be operational within the next few weeks,” Tetz said. “It’s freestanding and allows physicians to see the soft tissue. You’re able to get a better picture of what’s going on and exactly where things are.” During the past year, the hospital has had innovative technology in place used to treat brain cancers. “With our stereotatic radiosurgery equipment, we’re able to treat benign and malignant lesions in the brain,” Nellie Valdivia, manager of radiation therapy for the hospital, said. “We have a portal vision which allows us to view digital images immediately and a patient information system which controls the accelerator.” For the past four years, Glendale Adventist has been able to determine precise tumor volume with the Varian 2300 Silhouette, a dual energy photon accelerator with multiple electron energies. “This way the tumor may be treated and the healthy tissue around the tumor is spared,” Valdivia said. Advances in radiation Providence St. Joseph Medical Center also employs radiation machines that can maximize the dose of radiation to the tumor or target, while minimizing radiation to the kidneys, heart and other organs. “We use something called Brain Lab Radio Surgery to treat brain tumors,” Dr. Rex Hoffman, medical director of radiation oncology at the hospital, said. “The equipment targets the tumor while reducing radiation to the nearby brain.” Also, intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) is used at St. Joseph to treat prostate cancer by maximizing doses to the prostate and minimizing doses to the nearby bladder and rectum. Moreover, a number of pieces of equipment at the hospital reduces the amount of time patients will have to spend undergoing radiation. The MammoSite Balloon Catheter, for example, allows breast cancer patients to receive treatment in just one week instead of the standard six weeks. At the hospital, catheters are also sometimes used for prostate and gynecological cancers to deliver higher doses of radiation to specific areas with a rapid dose falloff to decrease the side effects of treatment. “We also offer something called brachytherapy for prostate cancer and gynecological cancer patients,” Hoffman said. “In the case of prostate cancer, radioactive seeds are placed into the prostate gland. This is a way of sometimes avoiding seven to eight weeks of radiation.” Most amazingly, perhaps, is the hospital’s use of Zevalin Radioimmunotherapy. This therapy is utilized for lymphoma cancer that doesn’t respond to standard chemotherapy and radiation. “It’s an injection through the vessels,” Hoffman explained. “It goes through the bloodstream. Antibodies attach onto certain lymphoma cells and seek out cancer in bloodstream.”

Featured Articles

Related Articles