Every 26 seconds someone has a cardiac event.

Every 45 seconds someone has a stroke.

What if you could help ensure these seconds do not define their lives?

Instead, what if you could help define their lives not in days or hours, but in the very few minutes it could take to save them?

Introducing Toshiba’s Aquilion ONE, a dynamic volume CT scanner which has the power to change patients’ lives by acquiring information in minutes rather than hours and helping physicians improve patient diagnosis.

More lives will be saved, hospital admissions slashed and patients diagnosed more quickly, all made possible with Toshiba’s new $3.5 million dynamic volume CT, Aquilion ONE.

The scanner is the first of its kind in the southern hemisphere and can create an instant three dimensional image of the heart or brain and its blood flow in one rotation, dramatically reducing the time it takes to diagnose patients at risk of strokes and heart attacks.

October 7th, 2008 saw the official opening of Toshiba’s first Aquilion ONE, the Luminary site installation at Southern Health. The installation was officially opened by the Premier of Victoria, Mr John Brumby and the Victorian Minister for Health Mr Daniel Andrews. Victoria is the first place in the southern hemisphere to use the scanner.

The Victorian Health Minister Daniel Andrews says it will also be used for medical research.

"This is a wonderful new piece of medical technology, one that will benefit, as we've already heard many, many patients in this setting but through the research that it will underpin many patients indeed perhaps the world over," he said. (www.abc.net.au)

Professor Ian Meredith of MonashHEART gave a short presentation on Aquilion ONE and its role at Southern Health on behalf of the CT team, saying that the technology was spectacular.

"You get an image that looks like you're holding the heart in the palm of your hand and you can just turn it around and look at it from different angles. It's a whole new level of diagnosis and treatment that we just didn't have previously," he said.

"Instead of waiting 12 hours in the emergency department trying to work out if you need admission, we're going to work it out in a couple of hours and we won't admit people to hospital unnecessarily. And more importantly we'll be less likely to discharge someone inappropriately who had a problem that was missed," he said. (www.theage.com.au)

Toshiba was represented by Mr Katsumata, Executive Vice-President Toshiba Japan, Mr Kurihara, Managing Director Toshiba Australia and Mr Nick Swaan, General Manager Medical Division Australia.

The official ceremony was preceded by a tour of the installation by Mr Brumby, accompanied by a patient that had been scanned there last week. Young Tom presented with breathing difficulties, and upon scanning was found to have aortic arch duplication. This scan was performed with <0.1mSv of dose and no sedation was required.

Following official proceedings a Sake barrel ceremony was performed in true Toshiba tradition to celebrate the fruition of months of hard work by many people from Southern Health and Toshiba. In keeping with the complexity of the project, it took a few goes to get the barrel top bashed open, but it was well worth it just wash down a glass of sake and some excellent sushi.

We are pleased to report since the official opening:
• Over 100 cardiac cases performed – with 100% success rate. No failed exams or undiagnostic studies. This is remarkable for coronary CT which is a challenging area for CT imaging and diagnosis, and is testament to the design concept and robustness of the CT technology on Aquilion ONE.

• Our first day of paediatric cardiac scanning was particularly successful. A 4 month old patient was scanned and due to the extremely short scan time NO use of sedation or anaesthetic was required. This is not possible with any other scanner than Aquilion ONE.

• The very first neuro case was incredibly successful and hugely impressive to the large number of diagnostic imaging and specialist neurology staff as they gathered for the occasion (this patient was unable to remain still for an adequate MRI, so was referred to CT). Dr John Troupis’ comments after the scan were “we were able to do in 40 seconds what would have taken over 40 minutes to achieve on a standard angio study”.

• Visiting International Applications Group (IAG) Specialist, Jeff Hall, has provided Aquilion ONE training to other luminary sites around the world and has been equally impressed... “this is a fantastic site that on a comparative basis is up there with other sites globally – outstanding. The ECG gated dynamic study performed looking for a pulmonary artery to venous fistula scanned yesterday is THE most unique and exciting application of this technique I have seen so far – anywhere”.

The Aquilion ONE is the result of hundreds of millions of dollars and more than 10 years of research and development. During that time, Toshiba worked with leading institutions worldwide to ensure this technology will allow hospitals to provide exceptional care to their patient communities.

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