Revolutionary medical equipment will be used for cardiac and interventional radiography procedures at Mater Dei Hospital

The two machines – a CT scanner and an angio suite – will be up and running in the coming weeks as the hospital administration strives to offer patients the highest levels of care.

The director of the hospital’s biomedical engineering department, Chris Attard Montalto, said that the equipment – which cost €1.7 million and €1.9 million – would propel the medical imagining department into a whole new era, offering patients safer and quicker procedures.

The images produced by the two machines are incredible. They will be changing the way cardiac and vascular procedures are carried out

The Revolution CT Scanner, purchased from US company GE Healthcare, captures images of the whole heart in a single beat, using a dose of radiation that is lower than that emitted by older machines, Mr Attard Montalto said.

“With this CT scanner, the dose of radiation is up to 82 per cent less for patients of all ages. This means that while it gets the job done quicker, it is also much safer,” he said. The radiation dosage would be lower but the images crisper than those of older machines, Mr Attard Montalto pointed out.

“These advanced machines also require very specific room conditions, so we had to design completely different layouts,” he said, adding that the first patients should be able to use the machines in the coming weeks.

The Philips Allura Xper FD biplane system, Mr Attard Montalto said, produced high-quality images that made the monitoring of complex interventions easier.

“The images produced by the two machines are incredible. They will be changing the way cardiac and vascular procedures are carried out,” he said.

The equipment was co-funded by the EU under the project ERDF 314.