R2 Technology releases new pulmonary artery patency exam tool
R2 Technology Inc. last week announced the launch of its new pulmonary artery patency exam (PE) tool. The tool is built to aid physicians in more accurately and efficiently detecting potential pulmonary artery obstructions, or "filling defects," such as emboli or tumors, during review of multislice CT exams, R2 said.
In a report, the Journal of the American Medical Association recently recommended computed tomography (CT) as the preferred method for ruling out pulmonary embolism. Pulmonary embolisms, which are blood clots in the pulmonary artery, affect approximately 600,000 Americans a year and results in over 60,000 deaths annually, according to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Yet, research has shown that pulmonary embolism is not diagnosed in up to 84 percent of associated deaths, R2 said.
The pulmonary artery PE filling defect detection tool, which has now been approved by the FDA, is now offered with the R2's new ImageChecker CT Lung Version 2.0 CAD system. Clinical data presented at the 2004 European Congress of Radiology showed that R2's pulmonary artery PE tool achieved a sensitivity of 88 percent for detection of segmental pulmonary embolism and 78 percent for detection of subsegmental pulmonary emboli, with an average of four false CAD marks per normal case.
R2's pulmonary artery PE tool examines patency following a multislice CT pulmonary angiogram. R2's proprietary algorithm analyzes the multislice image data and performs a sophisticated anatomical segmentation process, providing automatic calculations of vessel diameter, percent occlusion and size of the detected obstruction, the company said.
In a report, the Journal of the American Medical Association recently recommended computed tomography (CT) as the preferred method for ruling out pulmonary embolism. Pulmonary embolisms, which are blood clots in the pulmonary artery, affect approximately 600,000 Americans a year and results in over 60,000 deaths annually, according to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Yet, research has shown that pulmonary embolism is not diagnosed in up to 84 percent of associated deaths, R2 said.
The pulmonary artery PE filling defect detection tool, which has now been approved by the FDA, is now offered with the R2's new ImageChecker CT Lung Version 2.0 CAD system. Clinical data presented at the 2004 European Congress of Radiology showed that R2's pulmonary artery PE tool achieved a sensitivity of 88 percent for detection of segmental pulmonary embolism and 78 percent for detection of subsegmental pulmonary emboli, with an average of four false CAD marks per normal case.
R2's pulmonary artery PE tool examines patency following a multislice CT pulmonary angiogram. R2's proprietary algorithm analyzes the multislice image data and performs a sophisticated anatomical segmentation process, providing automatic calculations of vessel diameter, percent occlusion and size of the detected obstruction, the company said.