Imaging / X-ray Service | VA Portland Health Care

Dr. Ron Boucher, Chief of Imaging, and Laura Hatfield, Chief Technologist of Imaging, pose with the newly installed digital PET / CT from Philips Vereos at Portland VA Medical Center in 2018.

Nuclear Medicine Department

Another example of innovation at VA Portland; We were also one of the first VA locations in the US to install the Philips Vereos digital PET / CT scanner, which has a much higher resolution than traditional non-digital PET / CT scanners.

VA Portland’s nuclear medicine division has the following equipment in place to best serve our veterans.

  • Philips Vereo’s digital PET / CT scanner
  • Siemens Symbia SPECT / CT
  • Siemens Symbia Intevo SPECT / CT
  • Siemens Symbia Intevo Bold SPECT / CT scanner

The Department of Nuclear Medicine was one of the first to adopt the Gallium 68 Dotatate PET / CT, which compared to an In111 Octreotide scan, had much better resolution with a significantly lower radiation dose, easier patient preparation and a much faster scan time for evaluating neuroendocrine tumors offers .

Nuclear medicine also does DaT-SPECT / CT scans, which are used to diagnose Parkinson’s disease much earlier than traditional methods. The Nuclear Medicine Department is also involved in Carbon-14 research with OHSU and works with interventional radiology on Y-90 liver tumor treatments.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Department

The MRI department has a GE 1.5T 450 Wide Bore MR scanner and will soon be installing a 3.0T VIDA Big Bore MR scanner from Siemens. The MRI department is at the forefront of care with its pacemaker / ICD program and is currently scanning patients with conditional and unconditional pacemakers / ICDs with the assistance of an on-site electrophysiological cardiologist. The MRT department is also involved in research on traumatic brain trauma (TBI) and is part of the competence center for multiple sclerosis research.

Interventional Radiology (IR) Department

The IR department has a Philips biplane angiography device and installs a Canon Infinix-i 4D CT / Infinix-i Sky angiography device, which allows them to do a CT scan during an angiography procedure if they need more information without it Move device patiently.

The IR division is also a leader in oncology care, performing CT-guided radio frequency ablation of liver and kidney neoplasms, and was the second VA in the US to offer minimally invasive yttrium-90 selective internal radiation therapy (SIRT) treatment that can slow or cure liver cancer.

IR uses the Medivis SurgicalAR system, a groundbreaking surgical / interventional augmented reality system that enables a virtual reality fusion of a patient’s existing cross-sectional image data (CT, MRI) with the actual patient on the treatment table in order to understand and understand Precision of an interventional procedure.

The IR department leads the limb rescue program using advanced angiography techniques to improve blood flow to the extremities and prevent patients from amputating. The VA Portland IR team is the first VA unit to perform knee embolization for pain relief in a patient with terminal knee degeneration who is not eligible for knee replacement. Interventional radiology has also performed a recently developed procedure for prostate embolization as a nonsurgical treatment for benign prostatic hypertrophy.

Ultrasound department

The ultrasound department has five GE Logiq E10 ultrasound machines that are used for all routine ultrasound exams and ultrasound-guided biopsy procedures, and are also critical for evaluating post-transplant patients in support of VA Portland’s liver and kidney transplant programs.

X-ray department

The X-ray department has state-of-the-art and optimized equipment, including: five Shimadzu DR X-ray rooms, a total of five portable Canon and Fuji DR machines and will soon receive six new OIC Elite C-arms. The department has an O-arm device that is used with stealth software for spine surgery.

Fluoroscopy Department

The fluoroscopy department has a Shimadzu Sonialvision G4 remote fluoroscopy room and a classic GE fluoroscopy room for gastroenterological studies. You also have a Siemens Artis Zee C-arm fluoroscopy room that is used for joint injections and punctures.

Information technology

We use Carestream PACS for our picture archiving and communication system (PACS) with advanced picture editing programs, Philips IntelliSpace Portal and TeraRecon for radiologists and technicians. We will soon be the first VA hospital to install Vaultara, an Amazon web cloud image sharing program to expedite the import of external imaging studies into the Portland VA. We are currently monitoring radiation dose information using GE’s DoseWatch program.

Vancouver Ambulatory Imaging Center (VOICE)

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