Q&A: lodox CIT will save the lives of many trauma patients in Nigeria - Pieter de Beer

Pieter De Beer is the Chied Executive Officer of lodox critical imaging technology. He spoke to HealthNewsNG.com about how the technology would improve trauma care at the National Hospital Abuja, the principle behind the technology and plans to have more lodox machines in the 6 geographical zones of Nigeria.

HealthNewsNG: What does lodox do?

 

Pieter de Beer: What the machine does is it gives a full body x-ray scan. It takes 13 seconds to do the scan and it gives the x-ray of the full body. We are the only company in the world that can do such a large x-ray picture at the quality and the speed that we do it.

The radiation dose for the full body x-ray is one-tenth of the normal dose for the normal x-ray in emergency care. Within first minutes of arrival of patients, you can get all the diagnostic information that should normally take about 20 to 30 minutes to get.

What led to the development of lodox?

We originated from the Beer’s diamond mines where we are looking for diamonds in the miners on a daily basis to see if they are smuggling diamonds out of the mines. So it was important to have very good picture quality because it is difficult to see diamonds. It is very good to have a speedy machine because there are hundreds of miners to be scanned on a daily basis and in a low dose.

That is our route and now we’ve gotten machines for emergency care. Apart from the full body x-ray, you can do any other radiology x-rays that you need with our machine.

You can also do forensic studies with the scan of the body to see what the cause of death was.

How cost effective is lodox?

Cost efficiency is quite important. It is very important for the hospital to make money but it is also important that they have something that will give them a competitive edge. For our machine, because it is digital, the cost is cheaper than analogue machines because you don’t have to process films and the rest.

Because our machine is so designed, you don’t need to specifically prepare a lead-shielded room like they do when installing x-ray machines; hence it saves cost.

The type of patient would let surgeons decide how quickly they want to treat the patient. Many times you need less imaging after you’ve done these scans.

If you combine all of that, it is quite a cost-saving solution for the hospital.

What is the technology behind lodox because it looks quite different from other radiological machines?

It is normal x-ray technology although we used very good quality x-ray generators to get a very high energy x-ray to get the good picture quality at the speed that we do, and also to concentrate the dose. The technology is slot scanning that is like a fan beam of x-rays that is scanning from head to toes over a person. 

Normal x-ray is a cone beam. With a cone beam, if you look at the parallel shape of x-rays around cone, you’ve got lots of scattered x-rays surrounding the patient.

The detection rate using slot scan is very high.

How long did the technology development take before it became finally available for use?

The company is ten years old; we are now in the eleventh year. We launched the fourth generation of our machines this year. The first research started about 15 to 20 years ago and it took about 5 to 7 years to get to the first security machine, and another 2 – 3 years to get to the medical machine.

Now we have about 40 machines worldwide.

Are hospitals in Africa using lodox already?

Yes. It’s a South African product. We’ve got quite a couple of hospitals in South Africa using it because that’s our main country. We also have a partner in Nigeria, Apeiron Group, to get the product into Nigeria. 

We are going to have the machine in the National Hospital Abuja.

The machine has already been installed; we are just waiting for the opening at the hospital. That would be our first machine in an African country apart from South Africa.

How will the erratic electric power situation in Nigeria affect lodox?

It won’t affect it anymore than it would affect other equipment like any other large medical devices like the CT devices. Most hospitals have backup generators for that. The only major issue would be the rebooting of the computer.

Should there be a major power problem the machine will just safely shut down. There is no fear of injuries or anything and as soon as the power is up again it boots up within a minute or so and is ready to do scans again.

In addition to the National Hospital Abuja, which other Nigerian hospitals are talking to you about acquiring lodox?

Ja’afar Othman: Actually there are plans to establish trauma centers in the 6 geographical zones. So we are proposing that they should have a lodox machine at the entrance of each of the emergency units.

How much would it cost a Nigerian hospital to acquire lodox?

It actually depends on several things because you have to also think about software upgrade and other factors. So it’s not a very straightforward cost.

What would is the expected impact of lodox when it is commissioned and is being put to use?

You know the National Hospital is like a model hospital, we are hoping that once the one at the National Hospital in Abuja takes off, people will see the efficiency and the need for lodox slot scan and we will get to other regions.

Abuja is a tertiary medical facility. Is the cost of lodox within the reach of primary and secondary healthcare facilities in Nigeria?

Secondary hospitals can afford it but it is an overdose for primary healthcare centers. (Beer cuts in) you need hospitals of high emergency overflow and because it’s fun hearing technology, it’s not something that is common throughout emergency care. Surgeons need to adopt an emergency procedure.

Normally they will first do the primary surveys of the patient and only after that, a series of patients stabilized that they are taken for imaging which may take up to 30 minutes. But with our device, they need to do the imaging first.

It’s a change in protocol and many trauma surgeons don’t want to do that because we say it works. Although we have many hospitals where it works, every country’s model is different. National Hospital Abuja is the ideal hospital to show how it works.

You need surgeons here that buy into the product and understand the product and as soon as they get to know the product is being used in other hospitals they will buy into it.

I’m afraid it is difficult to buy a machine like this without the machine in your country that shows the people how it works.

In typical Nigerian medical facilities, machines like lodox are often kept in units outside, but not too far from the emergency unit. But lodox would be more effective right in the emergency unit. What is the arrangement at the Abuja National Hospital?

Othman: That is the beauty of the product; it is at the entrance of the emergency unit

Beer: From the ambulance, they take the patient directly to the machine. While they do the scan, they get the image and they do resuscitation. No other machine in the world can do that and that is the beauty of this product. It will save many lives because many patients die between the emergency room and the x-ray department.