A new PET/CT system with a larger axial field-of-view was the highlight of the Society of Nuclear Medicine (SNM) conference for Siemens Medical Solutions. The Malvern, PA, company also highlighted enhancements to its SPECT/CT and nuclear cardiology technology.
Biograph TruePoint represents the migration of the company's TruePoint technology to the Biograph 64 PET/CT product line. TruePoint increases the systems scan field by 33%, resulting in a 78% increase in the number of photons it is capable of detecting. This results in more precise and detailed images and fewer bed positions required for imaging -- five versus the seven required previously, according to Markus Lusser, vice president of worldwide sales and marketing for the company's molecular imaging division.
Siemens has installed two Biograph TruePoint systems, one in the U.S. and one in Europe. The system will be available in 40- and 64-slice CT configurations, and it uses the same lutetium oxyorthosilicate (LSO) detectors found on the previous Biograph 64 product. Biograph 64 will remain in the company's product catalog.
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In SPECT/CT, Siemens highlighted productivity features for its Symbia systems, including an automated collimator changer and an automated quality control system that uses a fully shielded nine-point flood source housed within the system. The flood source enable Symbia users to program the system to conduct quality control before they even arrive at the imaging facility, Lusser said.
For the company's c.cam dedicated cardiac camera, Siemens showed a new source-based attenuation correction technique called c.clear that uses a fixed gadolinium-based line source. The company demonstrated c.clear for the first time as a commercial product, Lusser said.
The company also demonstrated the Inveon small-animal imaging system for preclinical research. The system is capable of conducting PET/CT and SPECT/CT studies, and was first announced at the Academy of Molecular Imaging (AMI) meeting three months ago. Siemens plans to make the first Inveon shipment to the University of Wisconsin in Madison in the next two weeks.
Finally, Siemens showed a new version of its TrueD software with respiratory gating, and also highlighted its CardioFusion software for PET or SPECT cardiac studies.
By AuntMinnie.com staff writers
June 7, 2006
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