This is indeed the trickiest assignment for a person who has decided to have CT Scanner at his/her hospital/diagnostic centre. Most of the time doctors ask very innocent and simple question that is: what is the price of used CT Scanner? It is like someone asks you what is price of used car?
Below I have mentioned some of basic factors you must consider while selecting a CT scanner. If you follow this I am sure you will end up with appropriate product for your facility.
*If you are Neurosurgeon and you are catering brain patients most of the time then go for Single Slice Spiral CT scanner. You may go for 4-slice CT scanner if your patients are more than 15 per day OR you want to perform some detailed examinations like brain angiography and other advance diagnostic procedures.
*If you are doctor or independent entrepreneur and running hospital/diagnostic clinic then go for 4-slices or 16-slices according to your financial muscles and area where you are based. For example if you are running hospital in small city or situated in suburb of big city then go for 4-slice with good software options to examine abdomen patients also. You must select at least 16-slice if you are based in big metropolitan city.
Now the next question is which make, model and year of manufacturer of CT scanner is suitable for you. One factor, which is normally ignored by almost all clients, is X-Ray tube life and its price. This factor is fully capable to ruin your business completely. It takes you by surprise.
For example you select Used Toshiba Asteon CT Scanner for your facility and got this CT scanner in very good price. Let us assume that CT has been installed successfully by any service company. After six months or so if you have problem in X-Ray tube then what will you do? Obviously you will look around for X-Ray tube availability. It must be big surprise for you that Toshiba Asteon New Toshiba X-Ray tube price is around $40000.0 or so. It does not mean that you have selected wrong CT but it tells you that whenever you select Toshiba Spiral CT, make sure you have got good X-Ray tube it must have low number of slices on it, normally around 1 or 1.5 hundred thousand slices is considered to be good X-Ray tube. Toshiba CT Tube works for long time and normal life of Asteon Tube is around 500000 (0.5 Million) slices or more according to recent available data. On some sites it has completed more than 0.7 million slices as per our information. You may get more and comprehensive information from Toshiba representative in your area.
On other hand if you go for G.E Prospeed you may get new tube from Varian or Dunlee around $20000 on replacement basis. But the life of Prospeed tube is 2-2.5 hundred thousand slices on average as per our experience.
If I summarize above detail it looks like this:
After deciding single slice or 4-slices or 16-slices you have to consider the following facts:
1. Make and year of manufacturer?
2. Total no. of slices on X-Ray tube and scan time on X-Ray tube inc case of 4 or 16 slice scanner?
3. Total no. of slices on gantry?
4. Software options available?
5. Price of new X-Ray tube? Does it available only from manufacturer or can be purchased from another other company? Like G.E scanner tubes are also manufactured by Dunlee and Varian companies. But Toshiba tubes are only available from Toshiba Company and same is true for Hitachi.
6. Check the company reputation from which you are purchasing CT scanner? Check her total no. of installations, engineering strength and get feedback from their previous clients.
7. Are you getting complete package i.e Installation/commissioning, one year warranty with parts and Warranty of X-Ray tube slices?
In the end, we strongly recommend you that go for complete package from reputable company. It will not only save your time/money but also keep you free of hassles.
