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Medical Diagnostic Imaging
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11329 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
5 / 1986 |
3,039 Words |
| Author
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Jane Collins and Walter Froehlich
Jane Collins is a free-lance science writer residing in
Bethesda, Maryland.Walter Froehlich is the Owner/editor of
International Science Writers, a news and features service in
Washington, D.C. |
The heart keeps beating with its staccato rhythm. As if suspended in midair, apparently without being attached to anything or held by any support, it slowly turns in a complete circle. Gathered at the monitoring screen, physicians intently observe the rotating heart from different angles, watching for even the slightest hint of abnormalities.
This heart is very much alive and healthy, and its owner, a middle-aged man, is very comfortably stretched out on an examination table. Surrounding him are array of electronic sensors and their appurtenances. But nothing visible is touching him except, of course, the top of the examination table on which he resting. Yet, his heart at work is clearly perceptible on the screen.
New tools of modern medicine are opening our bodies to views of our innermost organs without any physical contact. Interior body parts, formerly not reachable during their owner's lifetime, can now be studied in minute detail while they are at work inside the body, just as if they had been removed and displayed for examination.
These new "touch-free" technologies allow physicians to obtain formerly unavailable information about a patient's condition. They can, thus, diagnose diseases often long before symptoms are noticeable by any other means. Treatment can begin during a disease's earliest stages when it usually can be most effectively controlled.
One of these new technologies expands traditional X-ray images three-dimensional, cube-like reproductions. A rapid-fire series of hundreds of narrow-beam X-rays, each from a slightly different angle, is coordinated by a computer to give the movie-like "dynamic spatial reconstruction" (DSR) showing organs from various sides just as if they had been removed from the rest of the body.
Sometimes the new techniques make possible the detection of barely discernible pre-disease conditions and, thus, permit treatment long before major symptoms often develop. Vague clues to disease can, thus, be found quickly and painlessly. Many of these cannot be gathered with any traditional methods, not even "invasive" techniques which sometimes involve discomforting, painful, and possible risky exploratory surgery.
The CT Scan
The most widely known and most-often used of the new techniques is the
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