The super scanner that lets doctors strip us down to bones and blood vessels

Pretty awesome images to say the least...with the new Essence technology...and the images can be viewed on any computer in the hospital...BD

They are pictures from the frontier of medical technology, revealing the interior of the human body with a clarity never seen before. One exposes the skull and neck bones as if they were part of a bare skeleton. Another, covering the hip area, displays bones, blood vessels and part of the digestive system. A third picture shows the heart, with the vital blood vessels that keep its muscles healthy and pumping, standing out in precise detail. They were taken with a 256-slice X-ray scanner the latest of its kind. Quite apart from providing stunning three-dimensional images from within the body, the £1million machine also reduces the radiation dose given to patients by up to 80 per cent on other scanners

The Brilliance CT machine was unveiled by Philips yesterday at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America in Chicago.
Computerized tomography scanners have been widely used in hospitals for many years. Forty and 64-slice machines have been introduced in recent years.
Steve Rusckowski, chief executive officer of Philips Medical Systems, said: "This scanner is so powerful it can capture an image of the entire heart in just two beats while also including technology that has reduced radiation doses."
Only one hospital in the world has the scanner so far – the Metro Health medical centre in Cleveland, Ohio – which has been taking images with the machine for a month.