GE Healthcare Expands Capability of Nuclear Medicine Imaging System

With exclusive rights to UCSF-patented technology, GE Healthcare increases detector utility

WAUKESHA, Wis., and SAN FRANCISCO - GE Healthcare Systems, a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE:GE), is increasing the diagnostic utility of its exclusive Infinia™ Hawkeye® nuclear medicine system with a new detector that enables physicians to localize disease with greater accuracy and speed. The Infinia Hawkeye combines single photon emission computed tomography and computed tomography (SPECT/CT) in one system.

The new 1” Elite™ detector with 95 photomultiplier tubes enables imaging with high and medium energy isotopes while preserving image quality at low energies. The detector can improve diagnostic accuracy in thyroid cancer imaging because of its high sensitivity to both medium-energy In111 Somatostatin receptors and the high-energy I131 tracer. In cardiology, its ability to provide high precision dual isotope simultaneous acquisition for stress/viability MIBI/FDG studies maximizes diagnostic accuracy while minimizing procedure time.

According to Stanley J. Goldsmith, M.D., Director of Nuclear Medicine and Professor of Radiology and Medicine at New York Presbyterian Hospital – Weill Cornell Medical Center, conventional wisdom says that the thicker the detector, the greater the image quality degradation at lower energies. The Elite crystal, however, breaks the mold, he said.

“We’ve performed studies with radionuclides at all energies, from low-energy technetium 99m studies to gallium and indium medium-energy studies to 511 keV studies in the dual coincidence mode, without any observable deterioration of image quality,” Goldsmith said. This enables a nuclear medicine department to acquire a single system that is good for both SPECT and for coincidence imaging, he said.

The Infinia Hawkeye SPECT/CT imaging technology, introduced earlier this year, also includes high flux patient-specific Attenuation Correction, an anatomically specific correction map. Artifacts are removed based on this map to improve diagnostic quality.

“Radionuclide after radionuclide, our overall accuracy improved with the use of the anatomic map,” said Dr. Goldsmith. “Even if you don’t use the map, the basic attenuation correction provided by the system is very useful, particularly in myocardial imaging. Attenuation correction eliminates another uncertainty in imaging.”

Concurrently, GE Healthcare has an arrangement with the University of California – San Francisco (UCSF) to exclusively market and distribute SPECT/CT dual-modality technology patented by UCSF(United States patent number 5,376,795). The use of any X-ray tube device for generation of an attenuation map is covered by the UCSF patent.

The American Society of Nuclear Cardiology and Society of Nuclear Medicine recently issued a Joint Position Statement on Attenuation Correction: “On the basis of the available clinical evidence and the rapid development of attenuation correction technology, it is recommended that providers (institutions and practitioners) consider the addition of hardware and software that have undergone clinical validation and include appropriate quality control tools to perform non-uniform attenuation correction.”

According to Dr. Bruce Hasegawa at the UCSF Physics Research Laboratory, “dual-modality imaging offers important advantages over conventional radionuclide imaging. It enables fusion of the anatomical and functional information with a level of ease and accuracy that cannot be obtained when the two images are obtained from separate systems. In addition, SPECT/CT imaging provides the capability to correct for the inherent attenuation present in the functional image by using the CT information.”

Infinia Hawkeye’s SPECT images focus on metabolic abnormalities that are present earlier than the anatomical changes otherwise seen with CT alone. Registering both images for a complete pathology picture in a single exam, Infinia helps physicians eliminate guesswork and enables them to plan better patient treatment.

“An Infinia Hawkeye system equipped with the Elite detector can perform a wider range of nuclear and SPECT/CT studies, giving customers a highly flexible diagnostic tool for everything from oncology to cardiology,” said Jeff Kao, General Manager of Global Nuclear Medicine for GE Healthcare.

GE Healthcare Systems also announced productivity enhancements to its nuclear medicine line. The company’s Millennium gamma cameras now will be available with a new, common user interface and innovative Ignite™ workflow software that fully automates exams for greater speed and consistency. In addition, the Xeleris™ workstation – the industry’s fastest processing and image review workstation – is now available for all GE nuclear medicine gamma cameras, as well as those produced by many other manufacturers.