Ben Taub Unveils Contemporary Cardiac Catheterization Lab

The latest addition in the Harris County Hospital District's Ben Taub Hospital is garnering a lot of attention lately, probably because it's the only combination catheterization-lab and digital angiography suite of its kind in Houston.

Ben Taub's new Toshiba X-ray angiography suite is the epitome of high-tech diagnostics and is being used to help HCHD doctors detect and treat artery blockages in vessels supplying blood to the major organs of patients' bodies. The system is digitally based and allows physicians to write CD-ROMs for post-procedure viewing with patients and staff on any desktop PC throughout the hospital or in the physicians' off-site offices.

"The new angiography system allows us to obtain extremely high-quality diagnostic information," says Dr. Nasser Lakkis, director of interventional cardiology at Ben Taub Hospital. "This enables quick, accurate diagnosis of vascular diseases and disorders, which translates into faster treatment and improved patient care. In fact, our new lab has enabled us to cut our normal procedure times nearly in half and, as a result, we've been able to perform more procedures, approximately 16 percent more this year than in previous years."

Angiography is a high-performance technology, which uses X-rays to allow doctors to view live motion pictures of bloodflow through the arteries. The technology produces high-resolution images of the vessels in the abdomen, legs, neck, head and other parts of the body. It is predominantly used by radiologists, angiographers and interventionalists to evaluate patients prior to certain treatments for vascular diseases, for pre-operative evaluation of the arteries and post-operative evaluation of vascular surgery.

The American Heart Association says more than 58 million Americans have one or more types of cardiovascular disease, which includes vessels supplying blood to the limbs, the brain and other major organs. Early diagnosis of cardiovascular disease is essential and angiography is widely considered to be the gold standard for examination and evaluation.

"We've been very pleased with quality of the images we get with the new system," said Dr. Lakkis. "I think we have set a new standard for image quality for the Texas Medical Center and the City of Houston."

Ben Taub Hospital performs approximately 1,300 cardiac catheterizations and angioplasties each year.

---

©2006 Texas Medical Center

---

E-Mail: tmcinfo@texmedctr.tmc.edu
URL: http://www.tmc.edu/tmcnews/02_01_01/page_06.html