Monthly Archives: February 2016

Canon Medical Systems is supporting a series of workshops on a cutting edge new procedure at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The technique involves the use of iodine-125 seeds for the localisation of breast tumours.

The UK Breast Screening Service detects around 17,000 breast tumours per annum, of which the majority are impalpable. Many of these patients will undergo surgical excision of the tumour guided by wire.

The Newcastle Hospitals Trust has introduced the first routine UK service to localise tumours with iodine-125 seeds as an alternative to wires. The seeds act as a beacon in the tumour, with a gamma probe guiding the surgeon to the precise location. This has resulted in an improved patient pathway as the seed insertion can take place seven to fourteen days prior to surgery. There is improved cosmesis and almost all surgical excisions are done as a day case.

The Trust uses the Canon Aplio 500 ultrasound scanner for seed placement and a Canon Viamo portable ultrasound machine is used on the course for practical demonstration.

The RVI was the first unit in the UK to start using this technique, in October 2014 after staff had travelled to the Netherlands for training in the procedure.

Merilyn Cockburn, Advanced Practitioner Radiographer says, “Apart from the advantages of being able to insert the seeds at least a week before surgery, thereby reducing the anxiety for patients, other benefits include a more straight forward procedure, with research showing that the technique gives greater accuracy in locating the tumour. The Canon ultrasound scanner offers good tumour and iodine seed visualisation and to date we have not had any misplaced seeds. The Canon Viamo portable machine is easy to set up and use and has improved the quality of our practical demonstrations.

The target audience for the workshop includes breast radiologists, radiographers, surgeons, key theatre and pathology staff, nuclear medicine physicists and radiation protection advisors.   Further workshops are planned and anyone interested can contact Julie.whale@nuth.nus.uk

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Shown here is the team at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, left to right, Mr. Adam Critchley, Consultant Oncoplastic Breast Surgeon; Dr. George Petrides, Consultant Radiologist; Dr. Nidhi Sibal, Consultant Radiologist, Breast Screening Programme Director; Merilyn Cockburn and Jenni Scott, Advanced Practitioner Radiographers and Dr. Richard Peace, Clinical Scientist & Nuclear Medicine Physicist

Canon Medical Systems has a carbon-zero project in place.  We have calculated the carbon footprint for each of our products to include manufacturing, shipping, delivery and average hospital energy used for the standard lifetime of the equipment as follows:

Ultrasound equates to 1 stove and 3,415 litres of water

Canon’s Aquilion ONE VISION Edition CT system was recently chosen by Nuffield Health Leeds Hospital. The new equipment replaces an existing scanner and was purchased primarily for its cutting edge cardiac capabilities. Cardiac is an area of speciality for the hospital. As part of the project Canon also supplied a Vitrea advanced visualisation software (thin client) solution.

Nuffield Health Leeds is Yorkshire’s largest private hospital, located in Leeds city centre. It specialises in complex surgery such as cardiac and neurosurgery, whilst also delivering specialities more traditionally associated with a private hospital such as orthopaedics, women’s and men’s health and cosmetic surgery.

Andrew Pimperton, Diagnostic Services Manager, says, “We chose Canon CT because it is a market leader in terms of cardiac CT, which is one of our areas of speciality at Leeds Nuffield. The acquisition of the heart in a single rotation gives us a competitive edge.”    Andrew continues, “The Canon team was very helpful and we are happy with the scanner.   It delivers clinically, and we have been able to increase our throughput with the new scanner.   Also, for the first time, we hope to be able to offer our patients a CT colonography service.”        

The Aquilion ONE VISION Edition CT scanner at Nuffield Health Leeds delivers advanced performance, with state-of-the-art features, including cardiac, body perfusion, CT colon CAD, and lung density analysis packages. It comes with Canon’s new ^PUREVision detector which provides unparalleled image resolution and industry leading dose savings. The Aquilion ONE is ideal for scanning bariatric patients with advanced iterative dose reduction, a large capacity generator, a 300kg couch and a large bore of 78 cm.

The addition to the system of iterative reconstructed volumetric 3D and 2D real-time CT fluoroscopy allows the most difficult interventional procedures to be performed at the lowest dose with improved accuracy and safety for both operator and patient.

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Shown here (left to right)  Graham King, Account Executive CT/MR/XR, Canon Medical Systems; Georgina Casey, Radiographer; Lee Martin and Heather Dring, CT Application Specialists, Canon Medical Systems; Lisa Fox, Lead Radiographer and Andrew Pimperton, Diagnostic Services Manager

Canon Medical Systems has a carbon-zero project in place.   We have calculated the carbon footprint for each of our products to include manufacturing, shipping and delivery and average hospital energy used for the standard lifetime of the equipment as follows:

CT equates to 12 stoves and 48,365 litres of water

Canon Medical Systems recently sponsored a cardiology simulation training session at the Surgical Innovation Centre, located at St. Mary’s Hospital in Paddington. The Hammersmith MDT Immersive Team Simulation sessions utilised the simulation framework iCAST (Imperial Cardiology Simulation Training) programme. Developed by Imperial College London and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, in conjunction with a team of behavioural psychologists and experts in simulation science, in close collaboration with strong clinical leads in cardiology and anaesthesia, it provides an inclusive and innovative approach to education, training and learning for consultants, trainees and cath-lab personnel.

Patient safety lies at the heart of the iCAST programme, which features a ‘live’ patient (actor), in a simulated setting with a state-of-the-art interventional simulator and trained clinical and technical faculty, housed in a high fidelity simulated cath lab (Orcamp) at the Surgical Innovation Centre at St. Mary’s. The pioneering iCAST framework fills crucial gaps in current cath-lab training by providing a safe, high-fidelity and immersive simulated setting for learning human factor skills (e.g. communication, leadership, decision-making, team co-operation and crisis management), combined with technical and procedural skills.

The simulations and subsequent structured team debriefs and group discussions aimed to provide a safe, simulated environment and multi-professional platform for learning for consultants and multi-disciplinary teams (MDTs), participating in the simulations. In addition, as an educational group learning tool, the aim was to generate discussions and solutions for Hammersmith cath-lab personnel viewing the simulations to establish: (a) what went wrong in the scenarios and why? (b) How can MDT communication and teamwork related issues be improved in real cath labs and (c) what are the current barriers and solutions for improvement?

Three entire cath-lab teams participated in three simulations, each led by a consultant cardiologist.  Each team comprised one radiographer, one cath-lab nurse, one physiologist, and an anaesthetist, who was called when needed in the case. All consultants and cath-lab team members were blind to the scenarios and were presented with a case history only, leading on to the interventional procedure and onset of complications requiring external input. Consultant anaesthetists were paged to arrive to the simulated cath-lab as in real emergency cases. Using the iCAST methodology, scenarios were expertly manipulated, haemodynamically and procedurally, in a separate control room by the highly experienced simulation faculty.

Findings, based on fifty iCAST participants, reflected the high realism of the training format, its utility and potential. The simulation experience was positively rated in terms of replicating the workplace, pathway and interactions with the team. It was rated positively for team training and as a format to assess workplace performance.

From a cath-lab personnel perspective, a radiographer from Hammersmith Hospital, participating in the training said, “Thank you very much for giving me an opportunity for the simulation based training course. It was a very useful, challenging and effective way to enhance and improve technical skills, clinical knowledge and also inter-professional skills. I would say it is part of clinical governance to delivery quality service and quality care to the patients and I would like to recommend to all my multi-professional colleagues to participate in this simulation training course.” 

 Dr. Jonathan Cousins, Consultant Anaesthetist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust summed up the day, commenting, “I have used and been trained inside anaesthetic-only simulators for many years, mainly to train crisis management and acute skill updates. iCAST is different and refreshingly so, the focus clearly on the MDT and getting a ‘pick and mix’ on call team to act in unison and without conflict between rank and specialty. Cardiac cath labs are the epitome of modern day hospital crisis environments. The specialty has rapidly out grown its historical construction and supports with the advent of HAC’s and chest pain centres – iCAST is clearly striving to repair this growth gap.” 

 Dr. Cousins continues, “It was clear how stressful the scenarios appeared to senior consultants (wanting to appear faultless and in sole charge) but the junior doctors with less knowledge, but more belief in teams and support relished the challenges. iCAST let them show the seniors how to engage (by example) and both groups were impressively changed by the end of the course.      This course should be standard for all trainees entering the cardiac catheter labs and for consultant revalidation on a regular basis – a 100% must for those on a PCI rota. With more than fifteen years experience of my own, I learnt a great deal and can see improvements in my own practice.”

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Shown here, students participating in a simulation-based training session   

Canon Medical Systems has a carbon-zero project in place.   We have calculated the carbon footprint for each of our products to include manufacturing, shipping, delivery and average hospital energy used for the standard lifetime of the equipment as follows:

X-ray equates to 13 stoves and 50,781 litres of water