OREANDA-NEWS. GE Healthcare, a division of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE), is introducing the DiscoveryTM RT*, a new advanced radiation therapy planning computed tomography (CT) system at the 57th Annual American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Meeting in San Antonio, Texas. Discovery RT is a CT simulator that offers a unique set of features that enables flexible patient positioning, software to address challenges presented by patient motion and metal, precise treatment planning and an efficient workflow, all combining to deliver uncompromised radiation therapy planning for oncology patients. CT Simulation is used to duplicate the radiation-treatment machine in terms of its geometric, mechanical, and optical properties by creating a three-dimensional image data set. This data is then used by the clinicians to localize the tumor and plan treatment without physically having the patient present.

Discovery RT boasts an 80 cm bore with an 80 cm field-of-view, enabled by Max Field of View* (MaxFOV), a new feature of this system. MaxFOV delivers CT images with specified spatial and density values to the edge of the bore—an industry first. The large bore and MaxFOV enables the flexibility to position the patients in different treatment positions and then to image the full patient volume for more accurate simulation and therapy planning.

GE Healthcare’s Smart Deviceless 4D technology delivers workflow efficiency and patient comfort in 4D motion assessment. Smart Deviceless 4D provides and displays images of all phases of a breathing cycle, which helps to simplify the motion assessment workflow. Deviceless 4D assesses motion without an external respiratory gating device, another unique feature of the Discovery RT system designed to improve workflow and patient comfort with no compromise to accuracy and precision.

The Discovery RT combines Smart Deviceless 4D technology with Smart Metal Artifact Reduction (MAR) to address two of treatment planning’s biggest challenges – the ability to outsmart metal and motion. When utilizing CT scans, clinicians are often challenged by image distortions caused by high-z metals in the body such as hip prosthesis, screws or dental fillings. Metals often generate streak-like artifacts in CT scans, making it difficult to clearly delineate between tumors and healthy tissue. Smart MAR addresses this challenge with an innovative three-stage, projection-based method designed to address both causes of metal artifacts – photon starvation and beam hardening. This automated approach is designed to reveal anatomic details obscured by metal artifacts.

"At GE Healthcare, we are committed to developing products that help clinicians address the challenges they are confronted with every day through high image quality, wide bore and efficient workflow featured in the Discovery RT,” said Shelley Shih, general manager of FastWorks and RT of Molecular Imaging and Computed Tomography at GE Healthcare. “We are proud to offer Discovery RT with Max Field of View technology – enabling clinicians to perform a full view edge-to-edge image acquisition with specified skin line and hounsfield unit (HU) accuracy to help improve patient’s radiation treatment plan.”

The GE MR Radiation Oncology Suite is another addition to a complete a portfolio of radiation oncology solutions from GE Healthcare. The suite includes a full complement of coils, positioning devices and pulse sequences to get voxels the right size in treatment position that can improve accuracy for treatment planning. In addition to the MR oncology suite, the SIGNA PET/MR, which has been commercially available in the U.S. since November 2014, offers time-of-flight PET reconstruction with exceptional sensitivity to explore lower PET dose opportunities. The SIGNA PET/MR is available with MR Silenz, part of SilentScan, with zero TE capability. Zero TE allows development in the area of bone segmentation, which has potential uses for MR simulation.

GE Healthcare also offers ExAblate, an MR-guided focused ultrasound that delivers high intensity focused ultrasound that thermally ablates targeted tissue using magnetic resonance imaging system (MRI) to identify and target tumors while providing temperature monitoring of the treated tissue in real-time. Also on display at ASTRO, the Discovery PET/CT portfolio features advanced motion management and Q.Clear, an exclusive reconstruction engine that improves up to two times the quantitation accuracy (SUVmean) and image quality (SNR), aimed at a more accurate treatment response assessment. This combined portfolio, including the new Discovery RT, helps to address critical clinical and technology needs in radiation oncology.

*Discovery RT and MaxFOV are not yet CE marked. For countries that require CE-marking, these products cannot be placed on the market or put into service until they are made to comply with the Medical Device Directive requirements for CE marking. Not available for sale in all regions.