TORONTO - The nuclear medicine group of Siemens Medical Systems is about to see a wave of new products hit the market after years of investment in PET-based technologies. The Hoffman Estates, IL, company is highlighting several of these novel new PET systems at this week’s Society of Nuclear Medicine meeting.
One of the most intriguing of the new Siemens products is Biograph, a hybrid CT/PET system. Biograph combines a Somatom Emotion spiral CT scanner with an ECAT Exact HR+ premium PET system, and is the product of pioneering work in hybrid imaging by David Townsend, Ph.D., at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania.
Siemens has been displaying its work on Biograph for the past several years, but the system is now on the cusp of commercialization. Shipments should begin some time this summer, with the first unit going to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, according to Randy Weatherhead, vice president of sales and marketing at Siemens.
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Biograph will compete head-to-head with Discovery LS, the hybrid CT/PET unit from GE Medical Systems that was launched with much fanfare last week. While GE’s marketing muscle is formidable, Siemens plans to emphasize the experience it has developed in working with Townsend’s group on hybrid imaging for the past six years.
For example, Biograph uses a single Syngo workstation to acquire, process, and fuse both CT and PET images, Weatherhead said. The system includes other patient-friendly features, such as a shorter bore, a 70-cm patient aperture, and a flat patient table that makes it easier to register Biograph images with radiation therapy.
The Siemens and GE systems have other subtle differences. GE has mated its PET camera with a super-premium multislice Lightspeed Plus CT scanner, while Siemens is using the less expensive Emotion product. Weatherhead believes this is an advantage, in that the needs of most CT/PET purchasers will be driven by the PET side rather than CT.
Regardless of the relative merits of each vendor’s product configuration, Siemens will have a price advantage. Biograph will carry a price of between $2.2 million to $2.4 million, depending on configuration, while GE has listed the price of Discovery LS at $2.7 million.
Another new PET camera that Siemens is highlighting is ECAT Accel. Shipments of that product have already begun, with the first unit installed at Northern California PET Center in Sacramento this spring. Accel uses lutetitium oxyorthosilicate (LSO) as a detector material, rather than the bismuth germanate (BGO) used in most PET cameras.
LSO is a very dense material, with rapid decay and higher count rate capabilities, Weatherhead said. These qualities have enabled Siemens to build a PET camera that has a throughput twice that of conventional BGO systems: an Accel can conduct a complete study as quickly as 20 minutes, according to Weatherhead. That will enable clinical PET sites to achieve the high throughput levels necessary to operate a profitable PET business. Accel will carry a list price of about $1.6 million.
For sites that aren’t ready to make the jump into dedicated PET, Siemens is highlighting E.Cam Duet, a gamma camera with a segmented 1-in. sodium iodide crystal developed by Bicron of Newbury, OH. Duet offers better coincidence detection performance than a 5/8-in. crystal, while also improving performance at mid-energy ranges. Siemens has conducted studies that indicate that the material is also adequate for imaging low-energy radioisotopes, Weatherhead said.
Finally, Siemens is rolling out a new gamma camera for animal studies, the M.Cam. There is growing interest in functional-based animal imaging as a part of the drug-development process, and M.Cam is targeted at that niche, according to Weatherhead. The system consists of a single-head E.Cam mounted on a special stand.
By Brian CaseyAuntMinnie.com staff writer
June 27, 2001
Related Reading
GE unveils Discovery LS hybrid CT/PET system, June 22, 2001
GE and Siemens cross swords in hybrid PET/CT imaging, November 28, 2000
PET imaging ignites nuclear medicine, November 16, 2000
Siemens claims top spot in nuclear medicine, October 23, 2000
Hybrid PET/CT scanner highlights Siemens offerings at SNM show, June 6, 2000
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