Dr. Kenneth Allen

  Superficially, MRI scanners and CT scanners have a similar appearance.  Both machines produce images of the insides of the body, with computer generated pictures that both display the same kinds of human anatomy.  For both scanners, the patient lies inside a hollow ring, or "gantry," while the machine does its job, although the MRI gantry is more tube-like and the CT gantry is more like a doughnut.  The space inside the gantry is the same for both machines.

  The CT scanner makes its pictures by shooting a beam of X-rays through the patient in a circular motion. The images that are produced depend on the densities of the tissues through which the X-ray beam passes.  Bone is very hard and dense, appearing white on the images, whereas fluid and soft tissues are less dense and appear darker.

  The MRI scanner does not use any radiation, but uses harmless radio-waves to help produce the images.  The MR images have a much wider range of appearances for soft tissue compared with CT, based on the composition and structure of those tissues rather than just the density of tissues, so MRI has a better ability to discriminate one tissue type from another.  This ability makes MRI very useful in detecting and characterizing soft tissue abnormalities that are associated with many different disease processes, in almost any part of the  body.

Suzanne Anderson- Prieto

    Suzanne Anderson Prieto has been a Connecticut resident for twenty years and has been a Radiologic Technologist in the CT Scan Department at Waterbury Hospital for 16 years.  In October of 2010 she was diagnosed with DCIS breast cancer through a routine mammogram at DRA. Suzanne considers herself lucky that her cancer was caught so early that only a lumpectomy was needed with long term Tamoxifen adjuvant therapy.

    Suzanne will be competing in this years Mrs. Connecticut American Pageant representing her hometown of Wolcott in February of 2012.  Suzanne hopes to spread the word,  "I feel very strong on the imperativeness of early breast cancer screening with both mammography and ultrasound.  I hope that in the next six months, throughout my journey months as Mrs. Wolcott, I can get my message out so many other women can be as fortunate as I was."