The scanner was prepared on December 16, in the presence of Prince Albert II. Doctors Filippo Civaia and Philippe Rossi present this revolutionary device and discuss the first assessment since its commissioning.

The project had been ongoing for twenty years. Today, the cardio-thoracic center in Monaco is equipped with one of the first photonic counting scanners in the world, entirely dedicated to cardiovascular pathologies.

” The goal is to better care for our patientsexplains Dr. Civaia, cardiologist at the centre. This scanner is the culmination of a visionary project between Monaco, Germany and the United States. The goal was to modify the image acquisition modality using photon counting. »

A complex process, which the practitioner sums up pictorially: ” when you use a standard scanner, it’s like using a watering can without a knob. When you water your plants, some of the water will be dispersed, some will be lost. With the new scanner, you add the knob to the watering can and you can disperse all the water with jets plus fins. Clearly, you can better break down the different jets and better analyze them. »

Avoid invasive treatments

The objective is therefore to see better but above all to better understand the images displayed on the screen. ” We can better characterize the plates [composées de lipides, de tissu fibreux et de calcium] in the coronaries and estimate whether these plaques are stable or unstable, because all problems in cardiology are related to plaquesadds Doctor Civaia. And thanks to this new technique, you can better study the characteristics of the plaque and identify those that can cause an acute heart attack. »

For patients, the interest is capital: with much more precise images, cardiologists are able to better define their treatment. This helps to increase efficiency. The contrast products for carrying out the scan and the duration of the examination remain the same, however.

With finer diagnoses, some patients could avoid the use of other invasive complementary examinations, such as coronary angiography which involves the puncture of an arterial vessel, hospitalization and possibly complications.

It is in our interest to make examinations as less irradiating as possible

Decrease radiation rate

At the same time, Dr. Rossi, cardiologist, has a non-negligible advantage: “ There is also a reduction in the irradiation of patients, with an irradiation rate reduced by a factor of 10 compared to the first cardiac scanners. When we carry out a radiological examination using X-rays, we never lose this dose of X-rays and beyond a certain accumulation, we risk developing radiation-induced pathologies, in particular cancerous ones. It is therefore in our best interest to make the examinations as less irradiating as possible. »

More than 1,000 examinations have been carried out at the center since the commissioning of this new scanner last September. Despite its lower radiation rate than standard scanners, doctors Civaia and Rossi point out that it is still an irradiating examination, which must be prescribed by a doctor. Its use as a preventive measure is therefore not suitable for the moment: it is a diagnostic tool.

Other institutions around the world are also equipped with these revolutionary scanners, but in other fields such as neurology or pneumology.