NEWS BRIEF
GE HealthCare expands its CT portfolio with new technologies and solutions to enable more personalized medicine now and in the future
Clinicians and patients are aligned in what they want: a healthcare experience that is more human and flexible, focusing on the needs of both clinicians and patients. However, 82% of hospitals feel challenged by the increase in CT procedures in the last two years. What’s more, the pace of innovation has been accelerated by modern engineering, artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing. Because of these advancements, CT technology is becoming obsolete more quickly than before.
As this demand continues to rise, healthcare systems require new solutions, with 89% identifying the improvement of their CT department workflow as a top priorityii and 44% facing the challenge of keeping CT system up to date.
Recognizing these needs, GE HealthCare is proud to showcase new technologies and solutions designed to grow and meet healthcare system needs today and tomorrow, drive operational efficiency, grow clinical capability and enable the practice of more personalized medicine.
Meeting CT department needs today & tomorrow
At #RSNA23, GE HealthCare is proud to introduce another new platform-based product: Revolution Ascend platform,[4] a CT solution with built-in scalability for onsite CT detector upgrades from a highly efficient 20 mm coverage system for routine scanning to a more advanced 40 mm coverage system that improves low contrast detectability. This design enables healthcare systems to invest in the clinical capabilities they need today, while also enabling growth in the future – all without replacing the gantry.
The platform also introduces True Enhance DL, which uses a dedicated Deep Neural Network (DNN) designed to generate deep learning-based monochromatic-like images from single-energy X-ray. It is designed to increase contrast resolution for confident diagnoses, especially for challenging oncology cases and other exams. The AI-based solution provides clinicians a simple workflow and incredible image quality without a radiation penalty.
Revolution Ascend platform is building on the success of the company’s Revolution Apex platform, which is now further advancing its platform capabilities by introducing a series of new features to help improve image quality, workflow, clinical capability, and intelligent platforms.
The platform’s 160mm detector configuration, Revolution Apex Elite, can not only achieve 1-beat, high definition, motion free coronary images at any heart rate, but now extends this unique capability to ECG-less Cardiac,[5] which can acquire cardiac images without the aid of the patients’ ECG signal/trace. This technology is applied in examinations where it is clinically advantageous to prioritize patient access or speed when the ECG signal is unavailable. Beyond its 160 mm detector, Revolution Apex platform extends its 0.23 second rotation time to its 80 mm configuration as well to further enhance its cardiac capability.
Furthermore, the company is also introducing Tube Watch on Revolution Apex platform for additional predictive capabilities. This solution uses digital twin technology to remotely monitor and predict tube failures or potential issues in the X-ray generation chain, allowing repairs to be scheduled for the least disruptive time possible to improve efficiency and minimize operation cost.
TrueFidelity DL is available across both Revolution Apex and Revolution Ascend platforms, leveraging a DNN to generate high-definition, low-noise CT images with exceptional sharpness and low-contrast detectability with preferred noise texture, at the same dose. [6] However, GE HealthCare is also excited to expand TrueFidelity DL to lung and extremity at this year’s show. Exclusively available on Revolution Apex platform, these new features enable high resolution imaging to increase visual sharpness with reduced noise for confident reporting and accepted image texture.
All configurations of the Revolution Ascend platform and Revolution Apex platform are paired with Effortless Workflow and Smart Subscription for the most efficient CT experience. Effortless Workflow intelligently automates the CT workflow from pre-scan protocoling to post-scan processing, using AI-based features to help transform the entire CT experience and provide maximum efficiency, accuracy, clarity and consistency. This enables technologists to personalize scans automatically and accurately for each patient with significantly less effort. The end result is exceptional, high quality CT images acquired in less time: 56% reduction in positioning time; [7] 66% reduction in total exam clicks;[8] and 21% reduction in total exam time.[9]
Meanwhile, Smart Subscription is a subscription-based service that helps keep healthcare systems’ computing platforms, clinical software applications and workflow innovations up to date across their entire fleet. As a result, users benefit from fully automated post-processing software applications – such as Spine Auto Views, Head Auto Views and Spectral Auto Views[10] – to complete their Effortless Workflow.
At RSNA, the company is excited to celebrate more than 500 users of Smart Subscription – highlighting broad adoption of software as service (SaaS) as a key tool for keeping pace with clinical and workflow innovations today and in the future.
Advancing the practice of precision medicine in interventional CT
With regard to enabling more human-focused, personalized care, interventional CT – offers unique opportunities to respond to these needs and advance the practice of precision care with new tools to assist in the diagnosis and treatment of disease.
Earlier this year, GE HealthCare welcomed CT-Navigation to its portfolio, offering clinicians detailed, real-time, 3D CT images for stereotactic needle guidance across an array of care areas, including interventional and oncological procedures as well as biopsies, ablations, drainage, therapeutics and more.
While many of today’s CT-guided solutions require interventionalists to take multiple control scans and awkwardly position themselves and the needle inside the gantry of a CT system – increasing the risk of radiation exposure to the clinician –the CT-Navigation system enables a more comfortable experience. Instead of working wholly within the CT system’s narrow bore, interventionalists using the CT-Navigation system can simply place a sensor on the patient inside the gantry. After scans are complete and the patient is removed from inside the system, interventionalists have full range of motion while navigating a needle more easily and safely through the patient’s anatomy using the placed sensor and detailed CT images.
Today, the innovative solution focuses solely on CT applications, but GE HealthCare plans to expand the technology to its image guided therapy (IGT) business in the near future – further advancing its clinical application and reach.
Collaborating with industry leaders on the future of CT
With regard to the future of CT, GE HealthCare continues to advance the technology’s capabilities with its unique approach to photon counting CT.
The company recently announced researchers at Stanford Medicine, Department of Radiology began scanning human subjects on its novel photon counting CT prototype designed with Deep Silicon detectors,[10] , [12] which aims to greatly enhance imaging capabilities and provide clinicians the information and data they need to help enable improved patient outcomes across oncology, cardiology, neurology, and other clinical CT applications.
Stanford Medicine researchers will facilitate human subject research and produce technical feedback to test and help assess the technology’s reconstruction methods, image presentation workflows, and clinical benefits for specific pathologies and disease types. This information will help optimize GE HealthCare’s patented technology to enable better visualization and utilization.
The prototype installation at Stanford Medicine comes less than a year after GE HealthCare announced its first U.S. clinical evaluation site at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and two years after the establishment of its first global site with Karolinska Institutet and MedTechLabs in Sweden.
For more information on GE Healthcare’s Computed Tomography portfolio, visit gehealthcare.com.
MEDIA CONTACT
Margaret Steinhafel
Global Communications Director, Molecular Imaging & Computed Tomography
M: +1 608 381 8829
margaret.steinhafel@gehealthcare.com
As this demand continues to rise, healthcare systems require new solutions, with 89% identifying the improvement of their CT department workflow as a top priorityii and 44% facing the challenge of keeping CT system up to date.
Recognizing these needs, GE HealthCare is proud to showcase new technologies and solutions designed to grow and meet healthcare system needs today and tomorrow, drive operational efficiency, grow clinical capability and enable the practice of more personalized medicine.
Meeting CT department needs today & tomorrow
At #RSNA23, GE HealthCare is proud to introduce another new platform-based product: Revolution Ascend platform,[4] a CT solution with built-in scalability for onsite CT detector upgrades from a highly efficient 20 mm coverage system for routine scanning to a more advanced 40 mm coverage system that improves low contrast detectability. This design enables healthcare systems to invest in the clinical capabilities they need today, while also enabling growth in the future – all without replacing the gantry.
The platform also introduces True Enhance DL, which uses a dedicated Deep Neural Network (DNN) designed to generate deep learning-based monochromatic-like images from single-energy X-ray. It is designed to increase contrast resolution for confident diagnoses, especially for challenging oncology cases and other exams. The AI-based solution provides clinicians a simple workflow and incredible image quality without a radiation penalty.
Revolution Ascend platform is building on the success of the company’s Revolution Apex platform, which is now further advancing its platform capabilities by introducing a series of new features to help improve image quality, workflow, clinical capability, and intelligent platforms.
The platform’s 160mm detector configuration, Revolution Apex Elite, can not only achieve 1-beat, high definition, motion free coronary images at any heart rate, but now extends this unique capability to ECG-less Cardiac,[5] which can acquire cardiac images without the aid of the patients’ ECG signal/trace. This technology is applied in examinations where it is clinically advantageous to prioritize patient access or speed when the ECG signal is unavailable. Beyond its 160 mm detector, Revolution Apex platform extends its 0.23 second rotation time to its 80 mm configuration as well to further enhance its cardiac capability.
Furthermore, the company is also introducing Tube Watch on Revolution Apex platform for additional predictive capabilities. This solution uses digital twin technology to remotely monitor and predict tube failures or potential issues in the X-ray generation chain, allowing repairs to be scheduled for the least disruptive time possible to improve efficiency and minimize operation cost.
TrueFidelity DL is available across both Revolution Apex and Revolution Ascend platforms, leveraging a DNN to generate high-definition, low-noise CT images with exceptional sharpness and low-contrast detectability with preferred noise texture, at the same dose. [6] However, GE HealthCare is also excited to expand TrueFidelity DL to lung and extremity at this year’s show. Exclusively available on Revolution Apex platform, these new features enable high resolution imaging to increase visual sharpness with reduced noise for confident reporting and accepted image texture.
All configurations of the Revolution Ascend platform and Revolution Apex platform are paired with Effortless Workflow and Smart Subscription for the most efficient CT experience. Effortless Workflow intelligently automates the CT workflow from pre-scan protocoling to post-scan processing, using AI-based features to help transform the entire CT experience and provide maximum efficiency, accuracy, clarity and consistency. This enables technologists to personalize scans automatically and accurately for each patient with significantly less effort. The end result is exceptional, high quality CT images acquired in less time: 56% reduction in positioning time; [7] 66% reduction in total exam clicks;[8] and 21% reduction in total exam time.[9]
Meanwhile, Smart Subscription is a subscription-based service that helps keep healthcare systems’ computing platforms, clinical software applications and workflow innovations up to date across their entire fleet. As a result, users benefit from fully automated post-processing software applications – such as Spine Auto Views, Head Auto Views and Spectral Auto Views[10] – to complete their Effortless Workflow.
At RSNA, the company is excited to celebrate more than 500 users of Smart Subscription – highlighting broad adoption of software as service (SaaS) as a key tool for keeping pace with clinical and workflow innovations today and in the future.
Advancing the practice of precision medicine in interventional CT
With regard to enabling more human-focused, personalized care, interventional CT – offers unique opportunities to respond to these needs and advance the practice of precision care with new tools to assist in the diagnosis and treatment of disease.
Earlier this year, GE HealthCare welcomed CT-Navigation to its portfolio, offering clinicians detailed, real-time, 3D CT images for stereotactic needle guidance across an array of care areas, including interventional and oncological procedures as well as biopsies, ablations, drainage, therapeutics and more.
While many of today’s CT-guided solutions require interventionalists to take multiple control scans and awkwardly position themselves and the needle inside the gantry of a CT system – increasing the risk of radiation exposure to the clinician –the CT-Navigation system enables a more comfortable experience. Instead of working wholly within the CT system’s narrow bore, interventionalists using the CT-Navigation system can simply place a sensor on the patient inside the gantry. After scans are complete and the patient is removed from inside the system, interventionalists have full range of motion while navigating a needle more easily and safely through the patient’s anatomy using the placed sensor and detailed CT images.
Today, the innovative solution focuses solely on CT applications, but GE HealthCare plans to expand the technology to its image guided therapy (IGT) business in the near future – further advancing its clinical application and reach.
Collaborating with industry leaders on the future of CT
With regard to the future of CT, GE HealthCare continues to advance the technology’s capabilities with its unique approach to photon counting CT.
The company recently announced researchers at Stanford Medicine, Department of Radiology began scanning human subjects on its novel photon counting CT prototype designed with Deep Silicon detectors,[10] , [12] which aims to greatly enhance imaging capabilities and provide clinicians the information and data they need to help enable improved patient outcomes across oncology, cardiology, neurology, and other clinical CT applications.
Stanford Medicine researchers will facilitate human subject research and produce technical feedback to test and help assess the technology’s reconstruction methods, image presentation workflows, and clinical benefits for specific pathologies and disease types. This information will help optimize GE HealthCare’s patented technology to enable better visualization and utilization.
The prototype installation at Stanford Medicine comes less than a year after GE HealthCare announced its first U.S. clinical evaluation site at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and two years after the establishment of its first global site with Karolinska Institutet and MedTechLabs in Sweden.
For more information on GE Healthcare’s Computed Tomography portfolio, visit gehealthcare.com.
MEDIA CONTACT
Margaret Steinhafel
Global Communications Director, Molecular Imaging & Computed Tomography
M: +1 608 381 8829
margaret.steinhafel@gehealthcare.com
[1] Reimagining Better Health 2023. GE HealthCare. Published June 6, 2023. Accessed June 8, 2023.
https://www.gehealthcare.com/insights/reimagining-better-health
[2] Data source is based on IMV 2018 CT Market Outlook Report. © 2018 IMV, part of the Science and Medicine Group.
[3] 2021 global radiology market research conducted by GE HealthCare.
[4] True Enhance DL is 510(k)-pending with the U.S. FDA. Not available for sale in the United States
[5] ECG-less Cardiac is 510(k) pending in the U.S. FDA. Not available for sale in the United States.
[6] Image quality comparisons were evaluated by phantom tests of MTF, SSP, axial NPS, standard deviation of image noise, CT Number accuracy, CNR, and artifact analysis. Additionally, LCD was demonstrated in phantom testing using a model observer with the head and body MITA CT IQ Phantoms (CT191, CT189 The Phantom Laboratory). DLIR-H and ASiR-V reconstructions were performed using the same raw data.
[7] The data was based on comparison between GE HealthCare’s legacy products (16 ch and 64 ch scanner) and Revolution Ascend in the three institutions using a pilot product and selected routine head and body. The data set of this comparison was 838 exams for legacy products and 1387 exams for Revolution Ascend. The time saving value may not be effective for all institutions depending on the clinical practice. Defined the scan setting time is from “Open new patient” to “Confirm setting for Scout”
[8] The required clicks are defined as clicks required to execute a scan from selecting a new patient till start scan. All associated clicks for and in clinical practice, number of the required clicks may vary depending on the circumstances, including but not limited to, the clinical task, exam type, clinical practice, and image reconstruction technique.
[9] The data was based on comparison between GE HealthCare’s legacy products (16 ch and 64 ch scanner) and Revolution Ascend in the three institutions using a pilot product and selected routine head and body. The data set of this comparison was 838 exams for legacy products and 1387 exams for Revolution Ascend. The time saving value may not be effective for all institutions depending on the clinical practice. Definition of entire exam time is from “Open new patient” to “Last primary recon completed” for Revolution Ascend and “Close exam” for legacy products.
[10] This is neither an offer nor an agreement to supply Head Auto Views, Spectral Color Overlay and Spectral Bone Marrow. Not CE-marked. Cannot be placed on the market or put into service until it has been made to comply with the Medical Device Regulation requirements for CE marking or otherwise obtained all required regulatory authorizations.
[11] Technology in development that represents ongoing research and development efforts. These technologies are not products and may never become products. Not for sale. Not cleared or approved by the U.S. FDA or any other global regulator for commercial availability. Not CE marked.
[12] The study is being conducted with the approval of the Institutional Review Boards.
https://www.gehealthcare.com/insights/reimagining-better-health
[2] Data source is based on IMV 2018 CT Market Outlook Report. © 2018 IMV, part of the Science and Medicine Group.
[3] 2021 global radiology market research conducted by GE HealthCare.
[4] True Enhance DL is 510(k)-pending with the U.S. FDA. Not available for sale in the United States
[5] ECG-less Cardiac is 510(k) pending in the U.S. FDA. Not available for sale in the United States.
[6] Image quality comparisons were evaluated by phantom tests of MTF, SSP, axial NPS, standard deviation of image noise, CT Number accuracy, CNR, and artifact analysis. Additionally, LCD was demonstrated in phantom testing using a model observer with the head and body MITA CT IQ Phantoms (CT191, CT189 The Phantom Laboratory). DLIR-H and ASiR-V reconstructions were performed using the same raw data.
[7] The data was based on comparison between GE HealthCare’s legacy products (16 ch and 64 ch scanner) and Revolution Ascend in the three institutions using a pilot product and selected routine head and body. The data set of this comparison was 838 exams for legacy products and 1387 exams for Revolution Ascend. The time saving value may not be effective for all institutions depending on the clinical practice. Defined the scan setting time is from “Open new patient” to “Confirm setting for Scout”
[8] The required clicks are defined as clicks required to execute a scan from selecting a new patient till start scan. All associated clicks for and in clinical practice, number of the required clicks may vary depending on the circumstances, including but not limited to, the clinical task, exam type, clinical practice, and image reconstruction technique.
[9] The data was based on comparison between GE HealthCare’s legacy products (16 ch and 64 ch scanner) and Revolution Ascend in the three institutions using a pilot product and selected routine head and body. The data set of this comparison was 838 exams for legacy products and 1387 exams for Revolution Ascend. The time saving value may not be effective for all institutions depending on the clinical practice. Definition of entire exam time is from “Open new patient” to “Last primary recon completed” for Revolution Ascend and “Close exam” for legacy products.
[10] This is neither an offer nor an agreement to supply Head Auto Views, Spectral Color Overlay and Spectral Bone Marrow. Not CE-marked. Cannot be placed on the market or put into service until it has been made to comply with the Medical Device Regulation requirements for CE marking or otherwise obtained all required regulatory authorizations.
[11] Technology in development that represents ongoing research and development efforts. These technologies are not products and may never become products. Not for sale. Not cleared or approved by the U.S. FDA or any other global regulator for commercial availability. Not CE marked.
[12] The study is being conducted with the approval of the Institutional Review Boards.