In an angio suite at Yale-New Haven Hospital, Dr. John Aruny zooms in on a small tibial artery using the new Allura Xper FD20 flat detector digital X-ray. “I’m amazed at the degree of detail throughout the zoom,” he says. “The sharpness of these images just knocks your socks off.”
High definition image quality, ease-of-use operation and thoughtful dose management have helped the FD20 gain widespread acceptance at Yale-New Haven.
Peripheral vascular application
Dr. Aruny (Chief of Vascular and Interventional Radiology) is using the Philips FD20 for procedures that help patients with diabetic vascular disease keep their limbs. “Our objective is to turn a major amputation into a minor one. We do a lot of superficial femoral artery and tibial artery angiography and interventions. Good definition in these small areas is absolutely critical.”
Maximum resolution
“We did a below the ankle angioplasty with a cryo-balloon (an angioplasty balloon filled with nitrous oxide) and the FD20’s image resolution was just fantastic.”
There is no ‘pixel thinning’ in the Philips image processing pipeline. Captured by a 5 mega-pixel detector at a resolution of 2k x 2k (4 million pixels), the image does not go through any interpolation process. The resolution is maintained as detected – providing superb image quality.
Optimum imaging geometry
By pivoting from landscape to portrait, the physician can position the flat detector to view any region of the body. For vascular interventionalists like Dr. Aruny this is important. “The FD20 allows us to see a really large field of view, without any distortion edge to edge.”
Localized control
“The FD20 is so user friendly,” says Dr. Aruny, “that there is a potential in smaller settings to have just one technologist and one physician. The physician can run the entire table while the technologist gets ready for the next patient.”
With the intuitive Xper (X-ray personalized) interface, the physician is not dependent upon the technologist to set the imaging parameters. They can be set right from the tableside touch screen control.
Dose savings
Both physician and patient benefit from lower contrast loads and radiation exposure. As an example Dr. Aruny notes, “We’ve found that since bones are displayed as ‘radio-lucent’ and the contrast column is in very sharp contrast, in most cases you really don’t need to do a subtraction bolus chase. That saves a lot of radiation.”
Small footprint
At Yale-New Haven Dr. Aruny’s interventional radiologists often partner with vascular surgeons during difficult procedures such as an abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) stent graft. “For an aortic stent graft you’ve got anesthesia and four operators in the room – two attending physicians and usually several surgical and radiology fellows or residents. Because of its smaller size, the FD20 fits very comfortably into that group. It’s really easy to position.”
Aorta 1 | 
Aorta 2 |
Widespread acceptance
“I enjoy working with the machine,” confesses Dr. Aruny. “And because of its improved resolution and ease-of-use it has become very popular with all our interventional radiology specialists. They’re clamoring to use it.”
“If you believed in Philips imaging quality before, the FD20 reinforces it in a very big way.”
(Published October 26, 2004)