Toshiba touts cardiac advances at ACC

Mar 8, 2004

NEW ORLEANS - Toshiba America Medical Systems is giving attendees at the American College of Cardiology meeting their first look at several new products the Tustin, CA, vendor has rolled out in the past several months. Key highlights include cardiac applications on the company's new 1.5-tesla MRI platform, plaque imaging with 32-slice CT, and a new flat-panel cardiovascular imaging system.

Excelart Vantage is Toshiba's new short-bore magnet, with Cardiac Plus the system's dedicated heart-scanning package. The company is highlighting Vantage's short length (1.495 m total, including scanner covers) and high magnet homogeneity, as well as SPEEDER parallel-imaging technique, which reduces cardiac MRI acquisition times by a factor of three, according to the company.

Toshiba is planning a new software release for this summer that will include late-enhancement and black-blood imaging features for contrast studies, as well as myocardial perfusion and new techniques for non-contrast exams that can be done in as little as 90 seconds.

In CT, Toshiba installed its first Aquilion 32 CFX scanner at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore the month before the ACC show, and in its booth the company is discussing the advantages of 32-slice CT and Aquilion's 0.5-mm slice thickness in cardiac imaging. The scanner has a 0.4-second rotation time, with temporal resolution as low as 40 milliseconds using its SureCardio reconstruction package. On the work-in-progress side, SurePlaque is a tissue-characterization package that Toshiba is working on with Johns Hopkins.

In vascular imaging, Toshiba announced that it has installed a flat-panel cardiac digital detector system at its first U.S. clinical evaluation site, Reid Hospital in Richmond, IN. The 20 x 20-cm detector will be offered as an upgrade to Infinix-i vascular systems in the field as soon as it receives Food and Drug Administration clearance, according to the company. Another cardiac detector system will be installed at the University of North Carolina Hospitals at Chapel Hill, NC.

In echocardiography, Toshiba is touting the cardiac imaging capabilities of Aplio CV, the flagship echo scanner the company introduced in 2003. Highlights of the system are its Intelligent Component Architecture, which allows faster data processing, and advanced applications like Tissue Doppler Quantification Imaging and 1.5 Rate Subtraction Imaging for contrast harmonic studies. On the ergonomic front, Toshiba is showcasing Aplio CV's IAssist feature, which uses Bluetooth connectivity to allow sonographers to control the scanner remotely.

By AuntMinnie.com staff writers
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