Laurence Needleman, MD, Director
Phone: 215-955-2900

The Body CT Division performs over 22,000 examinations per year, consisting of chest, abdomen and pelvis studies. Included in these examinations are aspirations, biopsies, drainages performed under CT guidance and CT angiography. All the studies are supervised and read by the CT division members. The examinations are performed on 3 multislice scanners and several more helical scanners. These scanners incorporate new post-processing capabilities along with 3-D construction. A weekly morning CT conference is held to review the cases from the preceding day. Didactic lectures in conjunction with Ultrasound and MRI are given during the year. Very close correlation is obtained between CT and clinical and other imaging modalities. Research opportunities are available for the residents and fellows rotating through the Division.

An exciting new development is our ability to noninvasively visualize the coronary arteries and the functioning of the cardiac chambers using multidetector CT.

 

This technique, known as coronary CT angiography, should be able to replace invasive cardiac catheterization in a significant percentage of patients with suspected heart disease.  Following intravenous injection of contrast, a rapid series of scans is obtained over 15-20 seconds.  Special software is then used to reconstruct the coronary arteries, through use of 3-D surface rendering, multiplanar reformatting, and maximum intensity projection techniques.

 

When the coronary arteries are well visualized, the negative predictive value is very high.  This technique is rapidly evolving and requires the use of CT scanners with at least 16 detector rows.  This service is directed by Ethan Halpern, M.D. (phone 215-955-5345)