Explore
new protocols by visualizing multiple tracers simultaneously
Search
for new insights with 3D Dynamic Acquisition¹
Research
existing tracers to help expand their clinical applications
Support
the development of new tracers
Utilizing the latest advancements in Cadmium Zinc Telluride (CZT) technology, StarGuide helps providers explore and better understand the patient condition to enable improved patient outcomes across care areas. The many technologies and productivity tools at the heart of StarGuide are provided to help physicians lead the way toward effective medical care while maintaining the ability to deliver efficient imaging solutions within demanding clinical environments.
StarGuide provides accurate quantitation to help clinicians make personalized care decisions and treatment response assessments that are at the heart of Theranostics by striking the right balance of energy resolution and spatial resolution.
Each of StarGuide’s 12 CZT Digital Focus Detectors supports a wide energy range capable of imaging the dual energy peaks of tracers used in Theranostics, such as the 113 keV and 208 keV emission peaks of 177Lu used to diagnose and evaluate treatment response for prostate cancer2. StarGuide is optimized for 177Lu imaging, enabled by its improved energy resolution, system sensitivity, and system planar resolution for 177Lu high and low energy peaks as compared to a NaI system3. This enables 177Lu imaging without the need for collimator exchange — typically needed in dual head cameras — simplifying day-to-day clinical workflow and patient scheduling.
StarGuide’s Optical Scout feature represents a genuine breakthrough in wholebody scanning and charts the path toward high quality clinical images. Located within its 80 cm bore, it performs an optical scan that creates an accurate topographical map of the patient, quickly and accurately scanning body contours to assure fast and safe transition from one imaging position to the next.
After processing the contour data, StarGuide's detectors and table are automatically positioned in close patient proximity for each bed position before beginning the clinical scan. With patient safety of paramount importance, each detector also contains a pressure sensitive cover, stopping motion if it is triggered.
StarGuide’s Digital Focus Detectors are designed to propel SPECT imaging to new heights in performance by maximizing the amount of information to help you gain true insight into the patient condition. After optimizing the detector and bed positions from the Optical Scout data, StarGuide’s constellation of 12 slim Digital Focus Detectors orbit the body as closely as possible, and from all necessary angles, to scan the target area — and not the air surrounding the patient. The result is a high-resolution scan and minimization of patient time on the camera. CZT detector technology features a higher count rate over conventional detector technologies. StarGuide’s intrinsic count rate is greater than 700 kcnts/second with no detector saturation or resulting dead time.
By leveraging proven GE Healthcare innovations like its interactive table ruler and our advanced automation robotics, then combining them with new innovations like our intuitive bedside display and Optical Scout, Swift Plan quickly becomes an extremely capable and user-friendly productivity enhancer. Swift Plan with SmartConsole automates SPECT/CT reconstruction, simplifies complex hybrid and quantitative protocols, optimizes image quality with retrospective processing features, reduces errors, allows operators to see images at the scanner console, and enables physicians to review scans remotely. Even with a long list of capabilities, the learning curve for Swift Plan is remarkably short.
SmartConsole is our latest network-capable image processing sub-system for Nuclear Medicine that enables you to automate SPECT/CT reconstruction, simplify complex hybrid imaging and quantitative protocols, and generate high-quality hybrid images so you can make informed decisions that lead to quantifiable results. SmartConsole includes FAME post-processing, which integrates the CT anatomical bone information into the SPECT bone image processing. When used on StarGuide images, the lesion detectability is improved, which helps increase diagnostic confidence4.
The Q.Clear reconstruction algorithm represents a significant step forward for use in SPECT imaging, including in the assessment of treatment response in addition to the diagnosis and staging of disease. This advancement is made possible by suppressing noise to provide outstanding quantitation accuracy without sacrificing StarGuide’s ability to accurately determine lesion size and volume.
FEATURES
Reliable scheduling
Replace planar exams with the predictable, repeatable scan times of 3D-only protocols which may minimize the need for additional views, reduce scheduling overruns and shorten patient wait times.
Scanning comfort
Swift Plan minimizes the time the patient spends motionless on the camera, helping lower the stress for patients with certain anxieties.
Higher sensitivity⁵
Leverage StarGuide’s higher system planar sensitivity and volume sensitivity, an important factor in NM imaging for enabling dose and time reduction.
Fewer rescans
Optical Scout, Swift Plan, StarGuide’s image processing engine, and Focused Imaging are important factors in helping reduce the need for inconvenient and anxiety-inducing rescans.
The CZT material at the heart of each Digital Focus Detector provides an inherently high contrast-to-noise ratio. Its 2.46 mm² pixel size and 8 mm spatial resolution6 deliver the clarity you need to detect, locate, and quantify diseases at an early stage – helping to open the door to more effective treatments and improved patient outcomes. StarGuide delivers a remarkable 5.9% energy resolution when scanning ⁹⁹ᵐTc, and <5% energy resolution when scanning 177Lu at its 208 keV peak. With such superb energy resolution, StarGuide gives you the ability to effectively differentiate between simultaneously acquired isotopes with smaller differences in peak energies.
Image a wide energy range
The ability to image both low and medium energy isotopes in a single scan with exceptional levels of spatial and energy resolution is what makes StarGuide a great tool for both clinical and research environments. The proprietary design of our 7.25 mm thick CZT semiconductor crystal makes the module capable of supporting up to 500 keV.*
*StarGuide's CZT module only.
Take a closer look where needed
Focused imaging gives you the ability to target a specific volume of interest (VOI) within the patient’s body and improves image quality within that VOI as the Digital Focus Detectors image that volume. StarGuide alters the detector sweep to spend more time focusing on the designated area to produce high-quality, data-rich imagery with no increase in scan time.
Analyze flow in greater detail
StarGuide’s ring of Digital Focus Detectors enables Dynamic SPECT acquisitions1 with high temporal resolution in as fast as 1 second. Fast temporal resolution is an important factor in imaging bolus injection and flow measurements.
Personalized patient exposure
StarGuide’s CZT technology is pivotal to minimizing the patient’s exposure to SPECT’s radioactive processes because its higher system planar sensitivity and volume sensitivity is an important factor in NM imaging for enabling dose and time reduction5.
Dual Channel collimation
StarGuide’s exclusive Dual Channel collimator enables a balance between sensitivity and resolution across low and medium energy ranges. Its design combines shorter septa and tungsten construction to deliver a remarkable 8.0 mm NEMA planar resolution and 4.5 mm Central SPECT resolution with scatter. The improved SPECT resolution enables sharp images for better visualization of fine anatomical details, which can help physicians to detect diseases at an earlier stage7.
GE Healthcare is at the forefront of molecular imaging, since the development of the first commercially available SPECT/CT scanner in 1999 and PET/CT in 2000. To maintain our leadership position, we have established the CZT Center of Excellence in Rehovot, Israel, where we continuously develop advanced, proprietary CZT technology found exclusively in GE Healthcare’s Nuclear Imaging products. Through GE Healthcare’s Pharmaceutical Diagnostics (PDx) division, we’re the only medical equipment manufacturer with the ability to develop and supply highly specialized pharmaceuticals to clinical and research institutions throughout the world.
Click here to learn more about Xeleris™ V, GE Healthcare's virtual processing and review solution for nuclear medicine, as well as clinical applications such as these.
Q.Volumetrix AI
Q.Volumetrix AI software enables advanced segmentation and quantitation capabilities for SPECT/CT and PET/CT data without impeding workflow for both baseline and longitudinal studies.
Q.Lung AI
Q.Lung AI offers a deep learning-based SPECT/CT lung lobe segmentation application, fast and reproducible lung lobe segment analysis and a guided auto analysis of quantitative lobal and lung function. It also offers trachea segment masking for pulmonary embolism evaluation.
Q.Thera AI
Q.Thera AI segments lesion volumes and can automatically segment organs, as well as quantify and calculate the percent of injected and absorbed dose per organ and lesion. Simplifying your process can save you time while providing clear and confident results.
Q.Liver
The Q.Liver application offers an enhanced workflow for assessing liver anatomy, an automatic method for liver segmentation and a single platform to facilitate dose calculation. It’s a one-stop-shop for processing, quantifying and reviewing liver SPECT/CT as well as tools provided to the user to help calculate the therapeutic SIRT treatment doses using a user defined formula.
The Nuclear Medicine staff at Orléans Hospital highlight their experience in the two years since StarGuide’s launch.
StarGuide offers fast and focused imaging in high resolution.
Image acquistion, collimator shape, and SmartConsole are hallmarks of StarGuide.
A full tomographic system for 2D, 3D, and even 4D imaging.
Fast acquisition time makes it more comfortable for patients.
Intuitive design and ease of use benefits technologists.
StarGuide is used in clinical routines for many types of SPECT imaging.
Hear from the NM staff at Orléans Hospital about their partnership with GE HealthCare.
