Radiology

Staff composition: The department has a diagnostic and technical team from a Grade IIIA hospital. It currently has 45 staff members: 18 physicians in the diagnostic team, 20 technical staff, 5 nursing staff, and 2 registration staff. There are 8 staff members with senior professional titles, 18 with intermediate professional titles, 7 master’s degree holders, and 8 with postgraduate education.

Discipline development: Study groups: The department has established specialized groups for thoracic, abdominal, neurological, and musculoskeletal imaging, among others. Members are regularly assigned to major hospitals throughout China for further training and advanced study according to these groups, and actively participate in provincial-, municipal-, and national-level academic annual meetings.

Services provided: The main services include: conventional X-ray radiography for examining diseases of the bones, chest, abdomen, and other areas; CT examinations providing cross-sectional images of all parts of the body for diagnosing tumors, trauma, infection, and other conditions, particularly HRCT and ultrathin-slice CT for diagnosing pulmonary tumors, infectious diseases, and diffuse lesions, as well as vascular reconstruction and noninvasive CTA imaging of the aorta, peripheral vessels, and coronary arteries; MRI examinations of the brain, spinal cord, joints, and other areas; digital mammography; bone mineral density measurement; and noninvasive digital gastrointestinal contrast examination.

Specialized examinations and treatments:

Three-dimensional reconstruction of pulmonary nodules: Three-dimensional reconstruction of pulmonary vessels and bronchi based on thin-slice lung CT is a post-processing technique that uses a computer to construct a three-dimensional image of the lungs from standard CT scan data. It offers the advantages of precise localization, diagnostic assistance, and surgical guidance in the diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary nodules. Applicable population: People whose physical examination reveals pulmonary nodules, especially nodules with a diameter ≥6 mm; people at high risk of lung cancer, such as long-term smokers and those with a family history of lung cancer or occupational exposure; patients with suspected malignant nodules who need to determine the nature of the nodule to decide whether surgery is required; and patients requiring preoperative planning, for whom physicians can formulate individualized surgical plans using a three-dimensional model.

Prospective-gated low-dose coronary CTA: Advanced scanning technology is used. While maintaining image quality, the radiation dose is reduced by 70% compared with retrospective gating, thereby meeting diagnostic requirements while reducing the potential harm caused by radiation exposure to patients.

Bronchial artery CTA: Thin-slice scanning and multiple post-processing methods are used to display the bronchial arteries and their branches fully and noninvasively, providing precise localization for bronchial artery infusion chemotherapy, enabling precise analysis of the causes of hemoptysis, and clearly displaying the vessels supplying the systemic circulation.

Cardiac magnetic resonance (pericardial assessment): This is noninvasive and radiation-free, and clearly displays pericardial thickening, effusion, and delayed enhancement in a one-stop examination, allowing precise assessment of inflammatory activity. Cine cardiac imaging dynamically observes cardiac systolic and diastolic function, identifies cardiac tamponade and myocardial involvement, and assists in differentiating constrictive pericarditis.

CT and MRI perfusion imaging: 1. Quantitatively evaluates cerebrovascular reserve capacity and cerebral hemodynamic information (the cerebral microcirculation status, for staging early cerebral ischemia); 2. determines whether an ischemic penumbra is present in cerebral infarction, guiding clinical thrombolytic therapy and subsequent efficacy evaluation; 3. differentiates some cases of encephalitis from tumors and assists in the qualitative and grading diagnosis of brain tumors.

CT-guided percutaneous lung biopsy: Under local anesthesia, CT is used to guide percutaneous puncture into a pulmonary lesion. A biopsy gun is used to obtain tissue from the lesion for pathological examination, culture, or other laboratory tests, assisting in establishing a diagnosis. It plays an important role in diagnosing pulmonary lesions and is currently widely used clinically. Compared with open lung biopsy and thoracoscopy, it has the advantages of less trauma, a lower incidence of pneumothorax and bleeding, and lower cost. More than 3,000 cases have been successfully performed at our hospital.

Transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) for liver cancer: Chemotherapeutic drugs and embolic agents are directly injected through a catheter into the artery supplying the tumor, causing ischemic necrosis of the tumor tissue. At the same time, the chemotherapeutic drugs act directly on tumor cells and exert a chemotherapy effect. It is one of the most commonly used interventional treatments for intermediate- and advanced-stage liver cancer. Interventional treatment for liver cancer has the advantages of minimal trauma, rapid recovery, and a short hospital stay; strong repeatability, allowing treatment to be performed multiple times according to the tumor condition; and a high local drug concentration with few systemic toxic side effects.

Implantation of a venous infusion port: Suitable for patients requiring long-term or repeated medication; blood draws and infusion of blood, blood products, or nutritional solutions; infusion of chemotherapeutic drugs or special drugs that must be administered through a central vein; and patients requiring long-term infusions who have difficulty with peripheral venipuncture or whose medication is unsuitable for peripheral intravenous administration. It can alleviate the discomfort of frequent replacement of infusion catheters and improve quality of life.

Equipment: The department currently has a complete range of medical imaging equipment: one Philips 3.0T MRI, one GE 1.5T MRI, one high-end Philips 256-slice ultra-fast CT, one GE 62-detector-row CT, one United Imaging uCT760 CT, two GE 16-slice spiral CT scanners, one imported digital gastrointestinal contrast machine, four imported DR units and one United Imaging DR unit, one OSTEOCORE2 dual-energy X-ray bone densitometer, one GE fully digital mammography X-ray unit, one Siemens DSA unit, two GE DSA units, four bedside DR units, and other equipment. The department also has a comprehensive hospital-wide PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication System) and is connected to the Hangzhou Medical Consortium Regional Imaging Sharing System. This enables rapid viewing of images throughout the hospital and at networked hospitals in the city, effectively reducing patient waiting times and facilitating physicians’ review of patients’ historical images and other examination materials.

Specialty clinics: An imaging specialist clinic is available every Tuesday morning; every Tuesday afternoon, on the first floor of Building 7, a joint specialist clinic for small pulmonary nodules is available.