Medical Informative Booklets
Medical Imagery
You will sit for a Scan
The principle of the examination
Scan, also termed X-ray scan, tomodensitometry (TD) or CT scan is performed with the consent of the patient after the reading of this informative paper. A scan uses X-rays.
Concerning irradiation, no risks have been revealed in patients as the amount is small and controlled. However, precautions must be taken systematically for the use of X-rays in pregnant women. Therefore, it is important to inform your doctor if you are or might be pregnant (delayed menstruation).
What do you need ?
1) a prescription of your doctor, to hand in to the secretariat
2) your SIS card (card of the National Health System)
3) your passport
4) you must hand in to the technician or nurse all your radios, echographies, scanners, and previous MRI, in film or CD-rom format.
How should you prepare to the scan ?
For the examinations that do need an injection (the radiologist decides whether it is necessary or not), you must be fasting (do not eat or drink anything nor smoke) for 4 hours before your exam.
In case of previous intolerance to iodinated contrast, you will be given a premedication.
Click here to see the instructions for preparations to technical examinations (realised in the Bordet Institute) :
- Instruction for Preparations (General choice)
- Preparation nr 1 : for the virtuel CT-colonoscopy (unit of Tomodensitometry)
What to expect during the examination ?
The technician or the nurse will tell you the clothing and jewellery you will have to remove. You will lie on a table and the body parts that have to be examined will be introduced in a tube (transmitter-receiver of X-rays). You might hear a humming noise coming from the RX tube, this is normal, don’t worry.
You will lie on a comfortable padded table. The table will move slowly through the tube. Sometimes, you may be asked to take some less comfortable positions (arms in the air, lie on one’s face…), in order to perform a good quality examination. You may feel the table move while images are being taken. The medical team stays behind a window in order to see and hear you. In the upper part of the tube, a microphone is permanently connected. In accordance with the type of exam, you will be asked to lie still, to hold your breath or to stop swallowing for a few seconds in order to avoid getting fuzzy images.
We advice you to go to the lavatory before the exam to feel more comfortable. However, ask for authorization if you have to be scanned for the abdomen or for the pelvis (kidney, bladder, etc,…), which need you to have a full or partially filled bladder.
Is it a painful exam and are there risks ?
If you have been injected contrast, you may initially feel a slight burning sensation of the body, which usually reside within a few seconds. If an haematoma appears, it is of little importance and will disappear within a few days.
During the injection, some liquid may escape under the skin, near to the vein because of pressure. This complication is rare, (one case out of more than several hunderds injections), and usually doesn’t have serious consequences, and could exceptionnally need local or surgical treatment.
There is a chance of an allergic reaction to the dye. These reactions are imprevisible , and more frequent in patients having experienced an allergic reaction to iodine before or in patients having an allergy history (food allergy, hay fever, asthma, other allergies…). These allergies are usually transitory and of little importance. They mainly consist of nausea and itching. They can be more severe, leading to cardio-respiratory troubles and require a treatment. Major complications are very rare : to your information, the risk of death is inferior to one case out of 100,000, i.e. 14 times less than the risk to be killed in a car accident within a year.
Nephrotoxicity, also linked to the iodinated product, can occur, especially in patients that are affected by kidney diseases (chronic renal failure, diabetes with renal failure, multiple myeloma, etc…)
How long will this take ?
The exam should last between 5 and 20 minutes. The exam procedure can vary depending on what we are looking for.
When do I get the results ?
The images are not immediately recorded on a film or Cd rom. First, the medical team will analyse the images and send a signed report with his or her interpretation to your doctor, who will inform you. However, complete results, that belong to the medical dossier are usually available by your doctor only, in the same way as other possible exams he would have prescribed. The images and the report of the radiologist will be sent to your doctor as soon as possible. For further information after the reading of this paper (established under the Law for the Rights of the Patient on 22 August 2002), you are invited to contact us.
Consultation : with appointment
Local : Polyclinique - Bd. de Waterloo 121 - 1000 Brussels
Tel : 02/ 541.73.74
Fax : 02/541.73.75
+32 2 541 31 11