Seeing
X-Rays in a Whole New Light, Digital machines speed up
the process, offer better images
Benny
Evangelista, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, February 28,
2000
With
a couple of mouse clicks, Dr. Charles Anderson called
up a digital X-ray image on a large computer screen.
Not only was he able to zoom in on a section of a
patient's knee, he was able to look into the future of
radiology.
Anderson
was demonstrating a new type of X-ray machine at the
Veteran's Administration Medical Center in San
Francisco. The machine uses new digital technology to
capture X-ray images instead of the century-old
technique using standard analog technology.
Although the device made by Swissray
International Inc. is the only one of its kind so far
in the Bay Area, Anderson and medical experts believe
similar digital X-ray machines will be commonplace in
hospitals and clinics around the country in a decade
or so. So far Swissray has installed 25 nationwide.
For the average patient, the
benefits of digital X-ray machines should be less time
waiting for results because doctors can see the images
in a matter of seconds.
Or, if the patient's own doctor or a
specialist is hundreds of miles away, the doctors
could still view a digital X-ray over the Internet.
And like a digital photo, the digital X-ray image can
be enhanced by computer to pick out finer details like
a hairline bone fracture.
``You can squeeze a lot more
information from these images,'' said Anderson, a
doctor of radiology at the VA hospital. ``You can
bring out details more than you can with film.''
Unlike X-ray film sheets that are
cumbersome to store and easily lost, digital X-rays
are always accessible through the hospital's computer
network or the Internet, he said.
``I can download a client's X-ray in
my home, and it takes about 10 seconds,'' Anderson
said.
Startling advances in medical
science have made procedures like talk-show host David
Letterman's quintuple bypass heart surgery last month
somewhat routine. And other radiological exams, like
magnetic resonance imaging, already give doctors a
digital readout.
But X-ray processing has remained
basically unchanged since the 1920s, said Robert A.
Bell, president of R.A. Bell and Associates, a
radiology industry consulting firm in Encinitas (San
Diego County).
Doctors have long used X-rays,
invisible bursts of electromagnetic radiation, as a
diagnostic tool because they can pass through the
human body. Conventional X-ray machines use
photographic film to capture images of bones and
internal organs.
X-ray film takes 10 to 20 minutes to
develop using chemicals that require special handling,
said Ueli Laupper, CEO of Swissray America Inc., the
U.S. unit of the Swiss company founded by his father
Ruedi Laupper.
The digital machines do not change
the way X-rays are administered to the patient. But
instead of film, the machine captures the X-ray images
using digital cameras, and the image shows up on a
computer monitor in 10 to 15 seconds, Laupper said.
Digitized versions of X-ray results
are not totally new in hospitals. For several years,
radiologists have been able to take an ``interim
step'' by producing standard film X-rays, then
converting them to digital using devices similar to
computer scanners or copy machines, Bell said.
But the future of the $10 billion
worldwide market for X-ray equipment is in machines
that directly digitize the X-ray results, Bell said.
He noted that several manufacturers -- including
General Electric Co.'s Medical Systems unit, Siemens
Medical Engineering Group and Phillips Medical Systems
--have introduced digital X-ray
machines that focus on specific examinations, such as
chest X-rays.
Earlier this month, GE Medical Inc.
received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval
for the country's first digital mammogram machine.
Swissray's Ueli Laupper said his
company has an advantage because its device is the
first one to hit the medical market for use for all
types of X-rays. The X-ray generator and optical
reader can be rotated 90 degrees to scan different
parts of the body.
The company recently announced a $13
million order for 32 units by the Romanian Ministry of
Health.
Still, the expense of digital
machines remains a major barrier. Conventional
machines cost around $170,000, said Laupper. The new
digital devices cost as much as $450,000 each.
At those high prices, the digital
machines by themselves will remain money losers for
hospitals and clinics without a ``major
restructuring'' of a radiology department's staffing
and operating procedures, Bell said. The digital X-ray
machines save labor because they don't require people
to file and process film.
Those kinds of changes often take
years to implement, so patients may not notice a
conversion to digital for another eight to 10 years,
he said.
``This is clearly the future,
presuming they can get the price down,'' Bell said.
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