GE Healthcare Now Shipping Cardiac Imaging With Up To 70 Percent Lower Dose

Main Category: Cardiovascular / Cardiology
Also Included In: Medical Devices / Diagnostics
Article Date: 23 Oct 2007 - 10:00 PST

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GE Healthcare's SnapShot Pulse technology for Cardiovascular CT is now in place at dozens of facilities across the nation and it's on display at the annual meeting of Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) in Washington, D.C. this week.

SnapShot Pulse is the industry's first-ever computed tomography (CT) feature that maintains outstanding image quality while reducing a patient's radiation exposure by up to 70% per scan. The CT system automatically "pulses" with a patient's heartbeat, turning the X-rays on and off at desired times during the heart rate cycle. In standard cardiac CT exams, the CT is on for the duration of a scan, even during periods when a patient's heart is at an undesirable phase. Since SnapShot Pulse software only keeps the x-ray active for optimal phases of a scan, it's able to significantly reduce a patient's radiation exposure time.

In addition, SnapShot Pulse's automated scanning table enables a multi-slice scanner to perform full CT angiographic (CTA) studies. These studies involve the table shifting from one location to the next, imaging the entire volume of the patient's heart. In addition, with SnapShot Pulse, a patient's heart rate is tracked real-time, with the X-ray and acquisition time driven by each patient. This innovative feature combination enables clinicians to obtain high quality images with the lowest possible dose exposure.

Dr. Jason Cole of Cardiology Associates in Mobile, Alabama is one of the first cardiologists to implement multi-slice cardiac CT imaging as a tool for coronary artery disease detection and one of the first to use the new Snapshot Pulse technology. "We are obtaining beautiful images on the patients we are scanning with SnapShot Pulse. The reduction in radiation dose is very important in extending the types of patients for whom coronary CT angiography is appropriate," Cole said.

GE Healthcare introduced the world's first volume CT system, the Lightspeed VCT, capable of capturing images of the heart and coronary arteries in just five heartbeats. By building on the strong foundation of LightSpeed VCTs installed, technologies such as SnapShot Pulse allow users to expand the clinical utility of cardiac CT.

"As leaders in CT, GE has focused on developing technologies that provide clinical excellence and outstanding image quality while reducing dose exposure for patients," said Gene Saragnese, vice president and general manager of GE's CT business. "We believe that achieving the lowest possible dose with SnapShot Pulse is an important advancement for cardiologists particularly, as cardiac patients often undergo multiple follow up procedures during the course of disease management."

About GE Healthcare

GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, performance improvement, drug discovery, and biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies is helping clinicians around the world re-imagine new ways to predict, diagnose, inform, treat and monitor disease, so patients can live their lives to the fullest.

GE Healthcare's broad range of products and services enable healthcare providers to better diagnose and treat cancer, heart disease, neurological diseases and other conditions earlier. Our vision for the future is to enable a new "early health" model of care focused on earlier diagnosis, pre-symptomatic disease detection and disease prevention. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a $17 billion unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE). Worldwide, GE Healthcare employs more than 46,000 people committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries. For more information about GE Healthcare, visit our website at http://www.gehealthcare.com.

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