Siemens will highlight Native TEQ, a new real-time image optimization feature for the company's Sequoia scanner line that analyzes signals as they return from the patient and adjusts scan parameters during the procedure. The technique enables operators to scan freely without having to touch the keyboard, according to the Malvern, PA, vendor.
Siemens says that because Native TEQ technology instantly and automatically optimizes images during an exam, clinicians may be able to pick up subtleties and lesions they couldn't have seen before. The most common technical scanning errors are corrected by instantaneously eliminating unbalanced, undergained, and overgained images, allowing exams with uniform brightness throughout the entire field-of-view.
Native TEQ will be available on the company's Sequoia radiology scanner, as well as the Sequoia C256 and Sequoia C512 cardiology systems. The target market niche will be emergency rooms, hospitals, and outpatient clinics. Relevant clinical applications will include universal ultrasound and echocardiography. FDA clearance is pending FDA 510(k) review.
This year Siemens began shipping its fourSight 4D ultrasound technology for the Sonoline Antares scanner. fourSight provides real-time display of 3D images. These are especially helpful in maternal fetal medicine, where physicians can use it to facilitate diagnosis of fetal malformations such as craniofacial abnormalities, and to improve communication with neonatal specialists and parents.
4D imaging may also provide physicians with a more complete view of the uterus or breast, and could be used during interventional procedures such as 4D needle-guided biopsies.
The fourSight 4D capabilities on Antares feature two ergonomically designed 4D transducers with multiple-frequency imaging for greater sensitivity and imaging bandwidth. The technology incorporates a complete set of 3D and 4D imaging features, including flexible image formats that enable a one-to-one, two-to-one, or four-to-one display to facilitate surface rendering, simultaneous dynamic acquisition, and display of high-resolution imaging.
fourSight's target market niche will be emergency rooms, hospitals, and outpatient clinics. Clinical applications include obstetrics, abdominal, and vascular imaging. The system has been cleared in the U.S., and is available worldwide.
By Robert Bruce
AuntMinnie.com contributing writer
November 12, 2004
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