New, technologically advanced operating room equipment is coming to West Lincoln Memorial Hospital (WLMH) – a C-shaped x-ray arm (C-arm) that provides real-time imaging during surgery and the accompanying specialized OR Table.
“Purchase of the table will benefit the community by enabling more general surgery cases to be done at WLMH,” said Dr. Danielle Charbonneau, WLMH anaesthetist, emergency room physician and WLMH Foundation board member. “We sincerely appreciate the community’s continued support of the Foundation’s fundraising priorities for WLMH.”
The C-arm can be moved horizontally, vertically and around the swivel axes, so that X-ray images of the patient can be produced from different angles during surgery. This enables surgeons to view high resolution images of bones or use fluoroscopy, which is an X-ray video that detects motion. With fluoroscopy, dye can be injected during surgery to sharpen visualization of internal structures.
“The C-arm and fluoroscopy operating room table will enable surgeons to more accurately and quickly monitor the progress of the surgery, and modify in real-time, if required,” said Dr.Stephen Kelly, Interim Surgeon in Chief, Hamilton Health Sciences.
For example, this new OR equipment will be used for general surgery cases, in particular, minimally invasive gallbladder surgery, which is also known as laparoscopic cholecystectomy. During this procedure, the C-arm technology will enable surgeons to accurately view gallbladder bile ducts for problems such as stones.
The new equipment can be used for other types of surgery as well, including orthopedic, gynecology and plastic surgery. The operating table and C-arm comes at a cost of approximately $310,000.
Both the C-arm and the operating room table will be part of the equipment plan for the new hospital.
