UGM researchers create multi-purpose CT scan
Ridlo Aryanto, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta
Just a week after physicist Kusminarto returned home after completing his doctoral degree at Surrey University in England, he was distressed upon learning that his niece, who was being treated for brain cancer, had to spend a great amount of money to have a regular CT scan.
Back then, in 1987, one session using the Computed Tomography (CT) scan at Bethesda hospital in Yogyakarta where his niece was being treated cost Rp 250,000.
Kusminarto learned that the imported CT scan machine cost Rp 5 billion.
"Only large hospitals in major cities can afford to have a CT scan. I immediately felt challenged to make a CT scan of the same quality at a lower price so that even hospitals in the regencies could afford it," said the researcher at Gajah Mada University's School of Mathematics and Natural Sciences' imaging physics laboratory.
In 1988, research to create CT scan technology began with the setting up an Imaging Physics Research team comprising Kusminarto himself, Gede Bayu Suparta and Waskito.
The three researchers spent 14 years on the project, which received financing of some Rp 500 million from the Ministry of National Education's Directorate General of Higher Education. The team finally patented their work, a CT scan called Focused System Tomography, in June this year.
How does this instrument work?
"It works in a simple way. It sends X-rays to the object to be scanned and these are later captured by a detector as data. This data is then sent to a computer. And in order to record every side of the object, the detector, controlled by a motor, makes two movements -- translation and rotation," Kusminarto said.
Then the computer instructs the detector to take a new position. Every time there's a new position, the data will be directly transferred to the computer. All data in the form of numerical codes are then displayed in a final output as a picture and a chart.
Unlike radiography technology, which can make only two- dimensional recordings, a CT Scan instrument can make a three- dimensional recording so that the chart produced will be of greater accuracy. "This is important for medical diagnosis," said Gede Bayu Suparta, who earned his doctorate in 1999 at Australia's Monash University with a dissertation on the development of CT scan technology.
"The digitalized imaging produced by a CT scan is multilayered and it is so soft that it can penetrate blood vessels. This tomographic scanning serves to map out coefficients of material differences from an object on a microscopic scale. What results is data in the form of atomic number functions of energy used in an object. Therefore, a CT Scanner can be used not only for microscopic data for medical purposes but also to scan any object for any other purpose," said Gede Bayu.
A CT Scanner can be used to map out an object with a description down to the atomic unit. Therefore, it can be used not only for medical purposes but also, for example, to detect whether a lubricant or a spark plug, for example, is genuine or not.
"One day we received an order asking us to check whether the welding of an oil pipe would leak or not. On another occasion, we were asked to test the strength of a Mercedes wheel rim. A CT scan can find out whether the casting is solid or not as stated in the specification. Sometimes at the time of casting, air bubbles are trapped, a phenomenon visible only through our CT Scan device," said Gede Bayu.
The locally made CT Scan can be produced at the cost of Rp 2.5 billion.
"We designed this instrument using more efficient technology. The usual CT Scan instrument uses 1,000 detectors and each costs US$500. For our instrument, we need only one-sixth of the number. Therefore we could cut down the cost but not at the expense of accuracy and quality.
"Owing to the progress in computer science, this CT Scan instrument can be operated by teleradiology, or remote control, reducing the likelihood of being exposed to radioactive materials. With the help of a computer we can also lower the specification of the X-ray used without compromising its quality," Gede Bayu said.
After inventing the CT Scan, the team also created digitalized radiography technology. "However, radiography which can send two dimensional data is less accurate than a CT Scanner, that can send three-dimensional data," said Gede Bayu.
The team is now offering its invention to industrial circles. "As the potential is good, ideally an industrial company can mass-produce our invention so at least our foreign exchange reserves can be considerably saved."