New innovative imaging kit for Aberdeen

Stage and screen actress Susan Hampshire OBE recently launched a new digital x-ray suite, the first of its kind in the world at Aberdeen University.

‘Nessie’ is the nickname of the new Direct Digital Radiostereometry system at the University’s health sciences building at the Foresterhill campus. The £500,000 piece of kit — which uses a new imaging technology called Radiostereometry (RSA) — will greatly aid researchers’ understanding of bone fractures and hip, knee and other joint replacements.

Built to the University’s specification, Nessie will enable researchers to predict more accurately the success or failure of joint replacements as well as better assess the healing of broken bones and damaged tendons. This should ultimately lead to more effective treatments for patients who will also receive a lower radiation dose when they are x-rayed using this new technology.

Professor David Reid, Chairman of the National Osteoporosis Society as well as Head of the University’s Division of Applied Medicine said, “This new facility will prove a boon for research into many types of arthritis but also critically the bone disease osteoporosis – a particular interest of Susan Hampshire, who is a patron of the National Osteoporosis Society.”

Paddy Ashcroft, consultant orthopaedic surgeon with NHS Grampian, and senior lecturer at the University, has been the driving force behind the new equipment – funded by the Scottish Chief Scientist Office, Grampian Osteoporosis Trust, NHS Grampian Research in Orthopaedics Fund and the University of Aberdeen.

He said, “Aberdeen is already acknowledged as a world leader for its imaging work and its research into bone diseases. Now Nessie, our brand new imaging system, further establishes our position as being right at the forefront of musculoskeletal and RSA research.”

Read the full radiostereometry story on the University of Aberdeen website