MEDRAD's Stellant D Injection System brings saline flush capability to your CT procedures. The addition of saline to contrast injections has proven clinical advantages for imaging professionals. Here is some additional information about saline use in CT.
What can saline flush do?
• Used as a "bolus chaser", saline creates a tighter bolus.
• Independent research indicates that saline flush may reduce image artifacts in thoracic CT applications¹
Saline Flush
• Complements Multidetector CT (MDCT)
• Creates tight bolus
• Allows clinicians to perform complex protocols like CTA, Cardiac CT
• Enables precisely-timed contrast delivery (pure arterial phase)
• Promotes efficient contrast use¹
• Allows sequential injections of contrast & saline
• Reduces artifacts and improves attenuation curve in thoracic CT¹
Right Place, Right Time
Saline flush helps get contrast to the right place at the right time. The attenuation curve in the first illustration below demonstrates the theoretical ideal enhancement, putting the exact volume of contrast into the area of interest at the time of the scan. Achieving this ideal attenuation curve would require an impractically complicated, ideal bolus.
The second illustration below shows that optimized enhancement, approximating the ideal, is possible with saline flush. Saline helps create a practically applicable, biphasic bolus that optimizes the contrast in the area of interest during the scan² ³.
Saline Flush Improves Perfusion Studies
The graphs below are from perfusion studies demonstrating the difference between the dual injector with saline flush and a contrast-only injector. The graph on the left shows a contrast-only injection with a long tail of contrast on the venous phase fading off to the right. The graph on the right shows the effect of dual injector technology with saline flush following a contrast injection. The peak is much sharper and the return to steady state much more precise. Both graphs were acquired from the same patient.
Graphs courtesy of St. Joseph's Hospital, Phoenix, AZ
1. Haage, Patrick, et al. "Reduction of Contrast Material Dose and Artifacts by a Saline Flush Using a Double Power Injector in Helical CT of the Thorax." AJR: 174, April 2000.
2. Filippo, et al. "Parameters Affecting Bolus Geometry in CTA: A Review." Journal of Computer Assisted Tomography 26(4):598-607.
3. Fleischmann, Dominik and Karl Hittmair. "Mathematical Analysis of Arterial Enhancement and Optimization of Bolus Geometry for CT Angiography Using the Discrete Fourier Transform." Journal of Computer Assisted Tomography 23(3):474-484.