Study: GE LightSpeed VCT able to capture heart in 5 beats
GE Healthcare this week announced results from a study which confirms that the LightSpeed VCT scanner captures images of the human heart in just five beats. The company made the announcement at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association in Dallas this week.
The clinical case study data was gathered by Jean-Louis Sablayrolles, MD, head of CT Cardiac Imaging Radiology at Centre Cardiologique de Nord (CCN) in Saint-Denis, France. It shows that the LightSpeed VCT offers a critical tool to improve the success rate of coronary CT imaging when compared with scan durations of 10 seconds or longer. The key result is that physicians can get clear images of a broader patient population than typical scans done by non-volume CT systems, according to the clinical study.
"This medical achievement in cardiac diagnosis is improving the standard of care for even those patients who previously were unable to undergo a non-invasive diagnosis because of poor breath hold," said Sablayrolles. "The extreme speed and enhanced image quality of the LightSpeed VCT are enabling doctors at CCN to scan patients in the shortest amount of time possible while obtaining remarkable cardiac images."
"After five seconds, the heart rate starts to increase due to hypoxia [breath hold], which is why GE's five beat technology is so vital to helping to obtain the images to diagnose a very broad patient population," said Sablayrolles.
GE also announced at the conference partnerships with more than 20 clinical collaborators to focus on large, in-depth research studies to further examine the benefits of cardiac CT. These academic institutions include the Medical College of Wisconsin; North Shore University Hospital; Cardiology Associates of Alabama; University of California Los Angeles - Harbor; Baylor University Hospital; and Cornell University Hospital.
Additionally, a controlled clinical study is underway at Children's Hospital and Health System in San Diego to assess the clinical performance of the LightSpeed VCT for infants with heart defects. The study will compare the accuracy of the LightSpeed VCT with the more invasive cardiac catheterization techniques on children born with congenital defects of the heart and major vessels, GE said.
The clinical case study data was gathered by Jean-Louis Sablayrolles, MD, head of CT Cardiac Imaging Radiology at Centre Cardiologique de Nord (CCN) in Saint-Denis, France. It shows that the LightSpeed VCT offers a critical tool to improve the success rate of coronary CT imaging when compared with scan durations of 10 seconds or longer. The key result is that physicians can get clear images of a broader patient population than typical scans done by non-volume CT systems, according to the clinical study.
"This medical achievement in cardiac diagnosis is improving the standard of care for even those patients who previously were unable to undergo a non-invasive diagnosis because of poor breath hold," said Sablayrolles. "The extreme speed and enhanced image quality of the LightSpeed VCT are enabling doctors at CCN to scan patients in the shortest amount of time possible while obtaining remarkable cardiac images."
"After five seconds, the heart rate starts to increase due to hypoxia [breath hold], which is why GE's five beat technology is so vital to helping to obtain the images to diagnose a very broad patient population," said Sablayrolles.
GE also announced at the conference partnerships with more than 20 clinical collaborators to focus on large, in-depth research studies to further examine the benefits of cardiac CT. These academic institutions include the Medical College of Wisconsin; North Shore University Hospital; Cardiology Associates of Alabama; University of California Los Angeles - Harbor; Baylor University Hospital; and Cornell University Hospital.
Additionally, a controlled clinical study is underway at Children's Hospital and Health System in San Diego to assess the clinical performance of the LightSpeed VCT for infants with heart defects. The study will compare the accuracy of the LightSpeed VCT with the more invasive cardiac catheterization techniques on children born with congenital defects of the heart and major vessels, GE said.