OREANDA-NEWS. Today at the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI 2013) annual meeting, GE Healthcare announced that it has received a New Medical Device license from Health Canada for its Optima* NM/CT 640 , a new performance SPECT/CT system that helps physicians balance low patient radiation dose and performance efficiency with diagnostic image quality.

The Optima NM/CT 640 enables clinicians to focus on key needs in diagnostic imaging, including high-quality visuals, low radiation dose and short exam times for patients. The Optima NM/CT 640 allows for hybrid imaging rather than stand-alone CT use, integrating the latest generation general purpose camera with a newly developed 4 slice CT. Available in 2.5mm and 5mm slice thicknesses, the CT technology is designed to optimize dose and resolution required for particular procedures, offering clinicians high-quality images with potentially low CT doses, with some being performed at 1-2 mSv for a 40cm abdomen CT scan.

The Optima NM/CT 640 requires relatively minimal renovation and installation costs and can be fully upgraded for future use, expanding its clinical capabilities as well as offering the potential for research use. When used with GE Healthcare’s Xeleris* Workstation, Optima NM/CT helps clinicians to feel confident in their diagnosis. Optima NM/CT’s image capabilities combined with the Xeleris features can potentially reduce scan time or injected patient dose by up to 50 percent in most scanning procedures while maintaining excellent image quality.†

“We are dedicated to pushing nuclear medicine to its full potential and developing equipment that helps customers address the challenges they are confronted with every day - high image quality, low dose and short exam times,” said Nathan Hermony, General Manager, Nuclear Medicine, GE Healthcare. “We are excited to be able to offer this innovative product to our customers in Canada.”

Discovery PET/CT 610 and 710 with Q.Suite

GE Healthcare also showcased its Discovery* PET/CT 610, the world’s first double-digit sensitivity, and highest level found on any PET/CT scanner commercially available.1 The Discovery PET/CT 610 is available with Q.Suite, an exclusive suite of technologies that drives consistent SUV quantitation, while lowering dose for patients and addressing the clinical challenge of respiratory motion. The revolutionary Q.Suite is now available across the complete Discovery PET/CT portfolio.

“At GE Healthcare, we are committed to delivering what matters to clinicians and patients – lower dose tools and better quantitative consistency, and that continues to form the foundation of our PET/CT products,” said Wei Shen, General Manager of PET/CT, GE Healthcare. “The ground-breaking Q.Suite technologies could enable doctors to better assess biological changes in a patient during a course of treatment – allowing them to quickly and accurately modify treatment regimens. The goal is to help clinicians provide a more personalized care for all patients.”

Sensitivity is one of the critical foundations of PET imaging, and this double-digit measurement of 10cps/kBq1 represents a critical milestone; it means the system is designed to collect the greatest number of counts in order to deliver fast and detailed scans at low dose. The Discovery PET/CT610 is optimized for today’s widely-used Fluorine-based tracers and delivers what every highly-demanding clinical environment demands: exceptional performance with a keen focus on the best image quality possible.

GE Healthcare is also showcasing Q.Suite, which is now available on both the Discovery PET/CT 610 and Discovery PET/CT 710. Q.Suite is a collection of technologies designed to minimize and manage variability, and enable repeatable accuracy for standard uptake value (SUV) measurement from one exam to the next. Two of the exclusive Q.Suite technologies are Q.AC and Q.Freeze.

Q.AC, a new CT reconstruction algorithm, delivers ultra-low dose2 CT attenuation correction. With Q.AC, GE enables new CTAC protocols which have allowed clinicians in certain situations to acquire CT data at an effective dose as low as 0.3mSv3 for whole body PET/CT and 0.02mSv4 for Brain PET/CT studies without compromising the quantitative PET measurement.

Prof. Dr. Klaus Tatsch from Stдdtisches Klinikum, one the first sites in the world to receive Q.AC, is routinely performing exceptionally low dose exams since the installation of the new Discovery PET/CT 710 in his institution. “With the ultra-low dose CT attenuation correction, we can obtain a scan for localization of the lesion in conjunction with the PET scan, and significantly reduce the radiation burden to the patient,” said Prof. Tatsh. “In this manner, we can still localize lesions as small as 3 mm and, in certain cases, have delivered effective CT doses as low as 0.3 mSv for whole body PET/CT.”

Q.Freeze, is the first ever imaging technique to combine the quantitative benefits of 4D PET/CT imaging into a single static image using 100% of the counts collected. The result is a full thorax scan in less than three minutes.

* Trademark of General Electric Company

† Shorter acquisition times and dose reduction capabilities are possible with Optima NM/CT 640 system only when used in combination with the relevant features offered on the Xeleris 3 processing and review workstation.

1 Source: ITN Online PET/CT Comparison Charts. May 2012: Represents typical system performance, measured according to NEMA Standards Publication NU2-2007. Sensitivity is defined as the number of counts per unit time detected by the device for each unit of activity present in a source, based on the average of measurements at 0 and 10 cm.

2 Q.AC lowers CT attenuation correction dose while maintaining accurate attenuation coefficients designed for improving PET quantitation consistency.

3 Obtained by EUR-16262 EN, using an adult head factor of 0.0023*DLP, an adult neck factor of 0.0054*DLP, an adult thorax factor of 0,017*DLP, an abdomen factor of 0.015*DLP , an adult pelvis factor of 0,019*DLP and an adult lower limbs factor of 0.009*DLP.

4 Obtained by EUR-16262 EN, using an adult head factor of 0.0023*DLP.