Portable CT Scanner

Portable X-ray machines are commonplace... but a portable CT scanner?!!

I saw this article by MedGadget about a portable CT scanner introduced earlier this year that can be wheeled around in the hospital made by NeuroLogica.

When looking up more details, the company makes not just one portable CT scanner, but FOUR different portable machines:

• BodyTom: Portable whole-body CT Scanner
• CereTom: Portable CT Head scanner
• OTOscan: Portable CT Sinus scanner
• inSPira HD SPECT: Portable SPECT scanner

Pretty amazing.

Though the whole-body CT scanner seems a bit big to be easily moved from hospital room to hospital room, it is comparable in size to portable fluoroscopy equipment currently in use. The other models are quite a bit smaller.

Realistically, I think the CereTOM will be the big winner as CT scans of the head is probably the most ordered CT scan in the hospital, often ordered to evaluate for stroke, head injury after a fall, sinusitis, facial fractures, brain tumor, seizures, etc, etc, etc. In many of these situations, the patient is fairly immobile and it just may be easier and faster if the CT scanner is brought to the patient rather than patient wheeled to a stationary CT scanner.

Dr. Chevalier Jackson, Laryngologist Extraordinaire

On Jan 10, 2011, the New York Times published an article on Dr. Chevalier Jackson, a pioneer in the field of laryngology, who is perhaps best known for his extensive collection of foreign bodies he removed from patients, young and old, with little or no anesthesia. His genius is documented in a new biography called "Swallow" by Mary Cappello.

Among other achievements by Dr. Jackson was passage of the Federal Caustic Poison Act of 1927, esophageal dilatation in kids, and treatment of many poor children without pay.

Perhaps the one thing Dr. Jackson was mistaken on was the discouragement of high tracheostomies or cricothyrodotomies back in 1921.

Of note, Dr. Jackson's foreign body collection (2000+ items) is now owned by the Mütter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia... a fantastic museum I may add.

Read the NYT article here.

Google Body Browser (Google Maps of the Human Body)

Google released a new "map" so to speak of the human body. In the same spirit and controls as the venerable Google Earth, Google Body Browser allows a user to zoom in and out as well as pan across the human body. Here is a window capture of a session when I was checking it out.

Currently, this internet-based program only works with Google Chrome which you can download for free here.

Access Body Browser here after you have Google Chrome installed.