The Hospital of Central Connecticut at New Britain General is improving its ability to diagnose patients by adding a state-of-the-art scanner to the facility.

The hospital has acquired a combination PET-CT (positron emission tomography and computed tomography) scanner, which will give doctors highly refined 3-D pictures of a patient’s internals organs and how they are functioning. The detailed images will enable doctors to make more informed choices about cardiac and cancer treatment, according to hospital representatives.

By October, HoCC expects to start using the new $3.8 million PET-CT scanner at its New Britain General campus. The hospital recently received approval from the state Office of Health Care Access to purchase the device.

Since 2006, HoCC has relied on a mobile PET-CT scanner, which arrived at the New Britain General campus weekly. The new scanner is more advanced and will allow patients to receive test results more quickly.

“With our own PET scanner, we will provide more access for our patients, in addition to continued availability of CT scanning,” said Sidney Ulreich, M.D., chief of radiology. “This advanced combined scanner will add significantly to our imaging technology capabilities toward diagnosing and staging different conditions and diseases.”

The PET scanner shows metabolism and the function of cells in a particular area of the body or organ, while the CT produces detailed anatomical images that can be manipulated into different 3-D views of body structures, including bone and soft tissue. The combination PET-CT enables doctors to fuse these images in one system, resulting in detailed images of cardiac vessels and cancerous tumors.

The PET and CT scan functions can be used separately or together.

Uses at the hospital include studies related to coronary artery disease and cancer treatment planning, and will be used in conjunction with the Novalis radiosurgery system, which uses a laser for targeting affected areas, also expected to debut in October.

“The 64-slice PET-CT will allow us to treat lung cancers more effectively,” said Neal Goldberg, M.D., chief of radiation oncology. “Used in combination with a new work station, the PET-CT will correlate the Novalis beam to the tumor without affecting the surrounding lung tissue as the patient breathes. It allows us to treat a moving target, which we couldn’t do before.”

More precision, said Goldberg, also translates into quicker treatment — five days using Novalis versus seven weeks of once-a-week radiation therapy for small lung cancers.

Milton Sands, M.D., chief of cardiology, said the system is also a major step forward for the hospital in diagnosing heart disease.

“The cardiac CT will aid in imaging the heart and coronary arteries and help in the diagnosis of coronary artery disease and other heart abnormalities,” he said. “It will be useful [for] people with chest pain and major risk factors for coronary artery disease, namely hypertension, diabetes, elevated cholesterol, a strong family history of heart disease and smoking.”

In the PET-CT scanner’s first year of use, the hospital anticipates performing over 700 PET-CT scans.