Unilabs Radiology units are situated in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland, performing the following modalities: Computed Tomography (CT), Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MR), ultrasound, X-ray and fluoroscopy, DEXA (Dual Energy X-ray Absorptiometry) and mammography.
Unilabs’ Radiology staff is trained constantly through special education on the use of new machines, through internal education, medical meetings and local meetings in each country.
The majority of examinations are held in Norway and Sweden (over 400 000 and over 300 000 per year respectively), but state-of-the art technologies are placed in all Nordic countries.
As an example, in Pilestrædet Røntgen, our new and very modern institution in Copenhagen, we have installed a new Philips 1.5 T Achieva MRI scanner. This is a state of the art 1.5 Tesla scanner which increases operator efficiency by 30% and allows cine cardiac MRI in a single breath hold. Easy work flow and excellent image quality is what our employees tell us about this scanner. It will give optimal diagnostic capability for the patients that will choose our institution in Copenhagen.
In Norway we have a total of 14 MRI scanners all of them, except two, are full body 1.0 or 1.5 Tesla machines. Unilabs’ MRI-equipment is completed by 4 scanners in Sweden and 1 in Finland.
State-of the art Unilabs’ machines include Computed Tomography scanners. In Norway there are at the moment three so called 64-slice CT, located in Oslo, Fredrikstad and Tønsberg, and there will be one more in Bergen in September.
These multi-slice CTs works on the same concept of helical or spiral CT, in which the X-ray source is attached to a rotating gantry. During the examination the table moves the patient through the scanner; therefore the X-ray beam traces a helical path. In multi-slice scanners there are more than one detector ring with increasing rotation speed: 64-slice has up to three rotations per second and isotropic resolution of 0.35 mm voxel (3D-analogous of a pixel) with z-axis scan speed of up to 18 cm/s. Such high resolution allows visualization of different parts of the body, such as the coronary tree with extremely high accuracy and detail where individual atheromatous plaques can be detected, characterized and used as an added variable in disease management. Scan times are of the order of just a few seconds (usually 5-13 seconds); this means that also patients with severe pulmonary disease and congestive heart failure can hold their breath for the required length of time. The scans can be timed to use only images gathered between contractions, so that the heart and its vessels can be seen without the blurring caused by motion.
Unilabs will continue to focus on its radiological department and offer the patients the best imaging possibilities available. Another exiting new imaging modality is PET-CT where radiology and nuclear medicine join forces to detect malignancy at an early stage.