GE Healthcare boasts complete package of molecular imaging tools
June 17, 2008 -- "From imaging agents to future imaging technologies, GE Healthcare provides the industry's most comprehensive portfolio of clinically-relevant offerings," says Gene Saragnese, vice president of GE Healthcare's molecular imaging and CT business. The company is showcasing new single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) imaging applications; positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) MotionFree technologies; and new pre-clinical imaging and radiopharmaceutical offerings this week at the Society of Nuclear Medicine annual meeting.
GE is launching two software packages for its 4-slice SPECT/CT, the Infinia Hawkeye 4. The new Volumetrix Suite, consisting of Volumetrix 3D and Volumetrix IR, promise image clarity and diagnostic confidence with precise detection and localization of disease. Volumetrix 3D is designed to provide 3D visualization with the productivity and ease of 2D image analysis. Volumetrix IR offers the choice of virtually any CT to view registered to the SPECT data, all within the nuclear medicine workflow.
"Motion is the most significant clinical challenge in PET/CT," the company says, so GE Healthcare offers MotionFree PET/CT imaging with advanced motion correction techniques as part of its Discovery PET/CT platform. The Discovery series features sensitivity and VUE Point HD high-definition imaging, with improved signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for all PET/CT exams.
GE's new eXplore speCZT for pre-clinical imaging, "the first full-ring solid-state detector small animal SPECT," uses a cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) detector, allowing for full 360-degree coverage around the animal and high-energy resolution to enable dual or triple radio-nuclide imaging. It promises to precisely quantify radiotracer uptake and identify morphological changes.
"Molecular imaging innovations are key to realizing GE Healthcare's vision for an Early Health model of care," said Jean-Luc Vanderheyden, global molecular imaging leader for GE Healthcare. "Our focus is to deliver on the initiative of Early Health-moving our healthcare system from being reactive, when diseases are diagnosed late and could be more difficult to treat, to proactive -- possibly preventing disease before it happens with early diagnosis and accurate follow-up."
Earlier this year, GE announced an expansion of its partnership with the Fraunhofer Institut fur Toxikologie und Experimentelle Medizin (Fraunhofer ITEM) to explore molecular imaging and its application to the development of novel cancer therapeutics.