GE Healthcare Announces U.S. Launch of Advanced, Compact CT System
WAUKESHA, WISCONSIN – 8 AUGUST 2011 – GE Healthcare today announced FDA clearance of Optima* CT660 – a powerful and compact Computed Tomography (CT) system offering improvements from its predecessors in diagnostic capabilities at low dose levels, and designed for sustainability and ease-of-use. Powered by GE’s advanced CT technologies and applications, this intelligent platform is scalable from 32 to 128 slices through purchasable options and enables fast, high performance imaging for patients in a variety of clinical settings, including cardiac, neurological, emergency room and routine CT.
“This next-generation CT system delivers on one of healthcare’s key challenges – generating precise clinical images and providing dose optimizing capabilities,” said Steve Gray, Vice President and General Manager of CT & Advantage Workstation for GE Healthcare. “Boosted by GE’s advanced low dose imaging technology, Optima CT660’s purposeful design and workflow enhancements also provide flexibility to facilities that may be constrained by space or resources – which aids healthcare professionals seeking to do more with less and best serve their patients’ needs.”
Already in use at hundreds of sites across Europe, Latin America and Asia, GE’s Optima CT660 is the first CT system that is both ecomagination and healthymagination-certified, two of GE's global initiatives aimed at transforming healthcare delivery through innovation, partnerships and sustainability.
Based on customer demand and designed with GE’s HD technologies, the Optima CT660 takes the known and trusted capabilities of the LightSpeed VCT to a whole new level. The Optima CT660 helps healthcare professionals deliver confident, personalized patient care – combining GE’s proven dose-optimizing ASiR*+ (Adaptive Statistical Iterative Reconstruction) technology, improved workflow features, and advanced applications for cardiovascular, oncology, neurology, CT angiography and other fields.
- In cardiovascular settings, Optima CT660 is designed to scan the heart efficiently with accurate and reliable clinical results. Combining ASiR and Snapshot* Pulse with Adaptive Gating technology, patient dose may be reduced compared to traditional helical scan techniques.+ GE’s CT Advantage Workstation (AW) cardiovascular system may also help accelerate workflow with enhanced post-processing automation and reliability.
- The Optima CT660 with AW’s suite of oncology applications helps physicians assess lesions at potentially lower dose, while also streamlining overall workflow for lesion detection, analysis and follow-up.
- For CT angiography, Optima CT660’s speed and image clarity may reduce the trade-off between coverage and high resolution.
Small Footprint, Big Benefits
Optima CT660’s compact footprint combined with a modular design opens the door to advanced, low dose imaging for many customers constrained by space.
An ecomagination-certified product, GE’s Optima CT660 is also among the world’s most energy efficient Volume CT systems, using about 60 percent less energy than previous-generation scanners. Additionally, its lighter weight reduces transportation costs while its environmental design addresses refurbishment and end-of-life recycling.
With ergonomic enhancements and new, convenient design features like automatic table positioning and GE Healthcare’s first color 12-inch integrated gantry display monitor, the user-friendly Optima CT660 offers outstanding imaging performance, customized exam previews and streamlined workflows for reliable and repeatable exams. These improvements can potentially improve patient throughput and workflow efficiency.
Lower Dose by Design
Traditionally, lowering CT dose increases noise creating an undesirable trade-off between clear images, required in today’s clinical environment, and reduced x-ray dose. To overcome this conventional CT challenge and achieve As Low As Reasonably Achievable (ALARA) dose levels, Optima CT660 utilizes GE’s industry breakthrough reconstruction technology called ASiR. ASiR’s design may allow for reduced mA in the acquisition of diagnostic images, thereby reducing the required x-ray dose. +
Additionally, and in line with GE’s continuing commitment to dose-reduction and the Medical Imaging and Technology Alliance’s “Dose Check” initiative, GE’s Optima CT660 features advanced tools that help clinical users manage dose. Standard on the Optima CT660, “Dose Check” technology notifies and alerts CT users prior to scanning if the estimated dose is above their institution’s set values, requires explicit user authority checks when estimated dose exceeds the alert value, enables specifically-defined pediatric and adult alert values, and provides for audit logging, review, and protocol change control capabilities.
* Trademark of General Electric Company.
+ ASiR is a reconstruction technology that may enable reduction in pixel noise standard deviation. The ASiR reconstruction algorithm may allow for reduced mA in the acquisition of diagnostic images, thereby reducing the dose required. In clinical practice, the use of ASiR may reduce CT patient dose depending on the clinical task, patient size, anatomical location and clinical practice. A consultation with a radiologist and a physicist should be made to determine the appropriate dose to obtain diagnostic image quality for the particular clinical task.
About GE Healthcare
GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our broad expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, drug discovery, biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies, performance improvement and performance solutions services help our customers to deliver better care to more people around the world at a lower cost. In addition, we partner with healthcare leaders, striving to leverage the global policy change necessary to implement a successful shift to sustainable healthcare systems.
Our “healthymagination” vision for the future invites the world to join us on our journey as we continuously develop innovations focused on reducing costs, increasing access and improving quality around the world. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE). Worldwide, GE Healthcare employees are committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries. For more information about GE Healthcare, visit our website at www.gehealthcare.com.
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