TORONTO, CANADA - GE Healthcare, introduced today Evolution for Bone, a new suite of reconstruction tools for GE’s Infinia with Xeleris functional imaging workstation, used for resolution recovery in SPECT/CT bone imaging that will improve image quality, diagnostic confidence, productivity, and patient comfort. Evolution will, for the first time, provide clinicians with excellent image clarity and up to a 50% reduction in imaging time. This new enhancement was introduced today at the 2005 Society of Nuclear Medicine (SNM) conference in Toronto and is available for images acquired on GE Healthcare’s Infinia nuclear imaging system.

“Bone scintigraphy is one of the most frequently used procedures in nuclear medicine. The importance of SPECT bone scintigraphy in improving lesion detection and specificity is well established however, currently it is used only as an additional study of limited skeletal region. A true tomographic modality should be a routine procedure providing high-quality data of larger skeletal regions with a reasonable imaging and processing time. These goals were achieved using Evolution bone scintigraphy. This multi-view SPECT technique will also be beneficial in other types of studies in nuclear medicine as well as a cornerstone for whole body SPECT/CT,” said Einat Even-Sapir, MD, PhD - Director, Department of Nuclear Medicine at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv, Israel.

With the reduction in imaging time, nuclear medicine departments no longer have to compromise image quality to improve productivity. Additionally, even the best departments occasionally experience compromised exam quality due to situations out of their control, such as delayed imaging, poor patient hydration, and infiltrated injections. Evolution addresses this issue by using a new reconstruction algorithm that more accurately positions events, even from studies of limited statistics, to improve the image quality.

“Evolution will take bone SPECT to the next level, from 2D planar to 3D SPECT. Multiple studies have concluded that SPECT imaging offers significant improvements in bone imaging. However, whole body SPECT imaging traditionally required an increase in exam time, which in turn increased patient discomfort. With Evolution, 3D whole body SPECT can be done in the same amount of time it currently takes to acquire a whole body planar image (2D) and a SPECT (3D) of a single area. This provides improved diagnostic confidence with better sensitivity and specificity to the entire imaging area, which was previously limited to only part of the patient’s anatomy,” said Hadi Moufarrej, general manager of functional imaging at GE Healthcare.

This benefit of decreased imaging time translates to increased patient comfort. In the past, nuclear medicine bone studies of a single region could take up to 20 minutes. Such imaging time can be difficult for the elderly or pediatric patients, who are in the greatest need for these procedures. Evolution allows those who may not have tolerated a more lengthy procedure to be imaged in half the time, with better quality and resolution.

About GE Healthcare

GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies that will shape a new age of patient care. GE Healthcare’s expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, disease research, drug discovery and biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies is dedicated to detecting disease earlier and helping physicians tailor treatment for individual patients. GE Healthcare offers a broad range of services to improve productivity in healthcare and enable healthcare providers to better diagnose, treat and manage patients with conditions such as cancer, neurological and cardiovascular diseases.

GE Healthcare is a $14 billion unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE) that is headquartered in the United Kingdom. Worldwide, GE Healthcare employs more than 42,500 people committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries.