Luke’s Medical Center and rocky mountain hospital for children at P/SL install Toshiba’s Aquilion on

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To continue to provide the most advanced care for adults, newborns and children across the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains region, Presbyterian/St. Luke’s Medical Center and Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children at P/SL have installed Toshiba’s Aquilion® ONE, the world’s first dynamic volume CT system. The hospital will use the Aquilion ONE to support its more than 80 specialties, including cardiology, neurology, oncology, diabetes management, orthopedics, pediatrics, emergency medicine and its nationally acclaimed wound healing/limb preservation program.

Developed by Toshiba Medical Systems Corporation, the Aquilion ONE dynamic volume CT is the only medical imaging system that can image an entire organ like the brain or heart in one rotation, and show real-time function, including blood flow and movement, in less time than traditional multi-detector row CT systems. It also uses less radiation than traditional multi-detector row CT systems and allows for imaging with limited-to-no patient sedation.

“The Aquilion ONE’s advanced CT technology is uniquely suited to support many of our specialties, including some distinct groups like pediatrics and limb preservation,” explained Dr. John Gerhold, medical director, Department of Radiology, Presbyterian/St. Luke’s Medical Center and Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children at P/SL. “The Aquilion ONE’s ability to image large anatomical regions and show dynamic function, while lowering radiation and sedation, is helping us improve patient care and safety for a range of patients. Its fast acquisition time images patients in a fraction of a second, requiring little-to-no patient sedation, which is easier and safer for patients, especially infants and children.”

Presbyterian/St. Luke’s Medical Center is home to the Denver Clinic for Extremities at Risk, one of the world’s leading limb preservation programs. The Aquilion ONE can be especially useful in orthopedic cases as it is the only CT system able to show dynamic function, such as blood flow and joint movement. The Aquilion ONE will be used in the diagnosis, treatment and monitoring of limb preservation patients at Presbyterian/St. Luke’s Medical Center. Using the Aquilion ONE, physicians can acquire 4D dynamic images of limbs to better assess the viability, blood flow and anatomical function.

Another reason to select dynamic volume CT is for its pediatric applications. The Aquilion ONE can significantly lower patient radiation dose exposure and decrease the sedation needed for exams. Traditionally, when children are imaged using multi-detector CT, sedation is required to keep the patient still long enough to obtain a clear diagnostic image. The Aquilion ONE’s fast exam time means less patient sedation is required. Also, the system includes Toshiba’s SUREExposure Pediatric software to automatically measure the size and age of each patient and tailor radiation dose to ensure the patient receives only the radiation required to obtain a clear diagnostic image.

Introduced in November 2007, dynamic volume CT scans an entire organ in a single pass and produces 4D videos that show an organ’s structure, its movement and blood flow. In comparison, a 64-slice, 128-slice or 256-slice CT scan can only capture a portion of an organ in a single pass, requiring physicians to “stitch together” multiple scans of an organ to get a full image. The new technology helps reduce multiple exposures to radiation and exam time.

“The Aquilion ONE was designed for today’s healthcare environment, where leading medical centers, like Presbyterian/St. Luke’s Medical Center, require advanced imaging technology to support a range of medical specialties, like emergency medicine and pediatrics,” said Doug Ryan, senior director, CT Business Unit, Toshiba. “While the Aquilion ONE is instrumental in affecting patient outcomes in these more traditional specialty areas, we have seen a number of sites use the system for new applications as Presbyterian/St. Luke’s Medical Center has done with its limb preservation program. Therein lies the power of this new system — to help physicians deliver better outcomes to a wider variety of patient groups.”

About Presbyterian/St. Luke’s Medical Center

For 128 years, P/SL has been meeting the healthcare needs of patients and their families from across the Rocky Mountain and Great Plains regions, and from around the world. With over 80 specialties, 1,000 specialists and primary care physicians, and 1,600 employees, P/SL is the only tertiary/quaternary care hospital in a seven state region that offers one campus with leading comprehensive care, featuring Advanced Centers for Minimally Invasive Surgery, Cardiovascular Services, Cancer/BMT, Pediatrics, Maternal-Fetal Care, Orthopedics, Kidney Transplant, HBO, Wound Healing, Infectious Diseases and more. P/SL provides compassionate and innovative care. Licensed for 680 beds, P/SL is the largest hospital in Colorado.

About Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children at P/SL

Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children at P/SL (RMHC at P/SL) is a regional resource for specialty pediatric care founded nearly twenty years ago by private practice pediatric specialists at HealthONE’s Presbyterian/St. Luke’s Medical Center in central Denver. It is home to the region’s largest and most successful high-risk maternity service and an 84-bed intensive care newborn nursery—keeping mothers and babies together in the same hospital for optimal care. A $113 million pediatric facility will open on the P/SL campus in 2010, expanding current pediatric services into a new 64-bed inpatient unit and creating additional operating room and pediatric intensive care areas.

RMHC at P/SL’s focus on patient care and quality monitoring extends throughout HealthONE’s family of hospitals to enhance existing services and bring specialty care closer to patients in their home community. HealthONE hospitals provided care to nearly 100,000 children in 2007 through inpatient and outpatient services. www.rockymountainhospitalforchildren.com

About Toshiba’s Aquilion ONE

The Aquilion® ONE, the world’s first dynamic volume CT, utilizes 320 ultra-high resolution detector rows to image an entire organ in a single gantry rotation and shows dynamic function like blood flow. Since its introduction in November 2007, the Aquilion ONE has been named Popular Science magazine’s “Best of What’s New 2008 — Personal Health Category,” rt Image’s 2008 Most Valuable Product (MVP), Frost & Sullivan’s Global CT Systems Product Differentiation Innovation Award 2007, AuntMinnie.com’s “Minnies 2008 — Best New Radiology Device” and Medical Design Excellence Award Winner in 2009.

About Toshiba

With headquarters in Tustin, Calif., Toshiba America Medical Systems markets, sells, distributes and services diagnostic imaging systems, and coordinates clinical diagnostic imaging research for all modalities in the United States. Toshiba Medical Systems Corp., an independent group company of Toshiba Corp., is a global leading provider of diagnostic medical imaging systems and comprehensive medical solutions, such as CT, Cath & EP Labs, X-ray, Ultrasound, MRI and information systems. Toshiba Corp. is a leader in information and communications systems, electronic components, consumer products, and power systems. Toshiba has approximately 198,000 employees worldwide and annual sales of $77 billion.

For more information, visit www.medical.toshiba.com