Philips details installs of hybrid imaging systems, product upgrades

Royal Philips Electronics announced that the company's advanced hybrid imaging systems have been installed at several facilities across North America, at the 52nd Society of Nuclear Medicine (SNM) annual meeting in Toronto, Canada, June 18-22. Additionally, the company displayed a number of product upgrades and new offerings.

Philips GEMINI GXL PET/CT began commercial shipments earlier this month and has helped Philips enhance its position in the market. Philips showcased new configurations for the GEMINI GXL product line, including a 64-slice CT configuration, designed for use with multislice CT applications in cardiology and radiology, and mobile configurations for the GEMINI GXL 6- and 16-slice CT systems, Philips said.

The company's Precedence SPECT/CT is now up-and-running at Baptist Hospital of Miami, the third U.S. system installation of the system.  Precedence provides high-end, fast-acquisition 16-slice CT with unique imaging algorithms that combine with 16-slice CT to facilitate myocardial perfusion imaging and coronary artery imaging (CTA).

Philips also announced at SNM that Astonish, a software that provides clinicians with control of resolution recovery and an application-specific optimization of noise suppression, is now available in all Philips imaging systems. The software uses a Butterworth filter to optimize post-filtering, useful for bone SPECT and brain SPECT imaging, for the best balance of resolution recovery and volume in the images.

Philips displayed its complete nuclear medicine portfolio at SNM, the focus of which is to "more precisely identifying the areas of disease, so that you can more precisely" treat the disease, said John Liebig, senior director, product management, Philips Nuclear Medicine. And moving patients through the healthcare system faster and getting them answers more quickly, he added.

The following upgraded products also were on display:
  • JETStream Workspace - Philips JETStream Workspace, a fully integrated, personalized workflow management system, is now available for general nuclear medicine. Designed to increase efficiency by consolidating all tasks into one workstation, it should help clinicians process with more speed, diagnose with confidence and accuracy, and convey results to referring physicians more effectively. 

  • CardioMD - Philips displayed a streamlined and compact CardioMD gamma camera, equipped with a Windows-XP laptop acquisition workstation and three laptop-mounting options for greater workflow flexibility and enable the system to fit into smaller rooms. The system's new design features are geared towards cardiology offices. The system's VantagePro attenuation correction is the only proven attenuation correction technology with truncation compensation, designed to maximize diagnostic accuracy and clinical utility, and is the industry's only attenuation correction technique with published, comprehensive multi-center clinical validation, Philips said.

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