GE Healthcare Launches the Most Sensitive Clinical PET/CT Scanner in the World

Discovery PET/CT 610 & Q.Suite Can Help Lower Dose for Patients and Improve Quantitative Consistency

CHICAGO — Today at RSNA 2012, GE Healthcare, a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE), is proud to announce the new Discovery† PET/CT 610 as the first double-digit sensitivity PET/CT scanner* with an absolute sensitivity of 10cps/kBq1, the highest level found on any scanner commercially available. The Discovery PET/CT 610 is available with Q.Suite that is proving that it can lower dose for patients and address the clinical challenge of respiratory motion with Q.AC2 and Q.Freeze, respectively. The revolutionary Q.Suite is now available across the complete Discovery PET/CT portfolio.

“At GE Healthcare, we are committed to delivering what matters to clinicians and patients – lower dose and better quantitative accuracy, and that continues to form the foundation of our PET/CT products,” said Vivek Bhatt, General Manager of PET, GE Healthcare. “We are excited to announce that the Discovery PET/CT 610 now joins Discovery PET/CT 710 in offering the ground-breaking Q.Suite technologies that could potentially contribute to personalized oncology care, enabling doctors to assess biological changes in a patient during a course of treatment – allowing them to quickly and accurately modify treatment regimens.”

Discovery PET/CT 610: The Most Sensitive Clinical PET Scanner

Sensitivity is one of the critical foundations of PET imaging, and this double-digit measurement of 10cps/kBq represents a critical milestone; it means the system is designed to collect the greatest number of counts in order to deliver fast and detailed scans at low dose. The Discovery PET/CT610 is optimized for today’s widely-used Fluorine-based tracers and delivers what every highly-demanding clinical environment demands: exceptional performance with a keen focus on the best image quality possible.

GE Healthcare is also showcasing Q.Suite, which is now available on both the Discovery PET/CT 610 and Discovery PET/CT 710. Q.Suite is a collection of technologies designed to minimize and manage variability, and enable repeatable accuracy for standard uptake value (SUV) measurement from one exam to the next. That consistency in SUV measurements helps drive diagnostic confidence and enables clinicians to assess treatment response accurately. Q.Suite is designed to help improve consistency of quantitative measurements in every key area: daily quality control, scanner workflow, motion correction, reconstruction algorithms, and analysis, and reporting applications.

Q.Freeze – Full Thorax MotionFree PET/CT in Less Than 3 Minutes

Q.Freeze, a component of Q.Suite, addresses the clinical challenge of respiratory motion in PET/CT. It is the first ever imaging technique to combine the quantitative benefits of 4D PET/CT imaging into a single static image using 100% of the counts collected.

Dr. Guerra of San Gerardo Hospital - University of Milan, explains how they are seeing the impact of Q.Freeze within their clinical workflow, “With Q.Freeze, our aim is to provide respiratory motion correction PET/CT imaging whenever necessary within our daily clinical routine. Q.Freeze enables full thorax motion correction in less than 3 minutes in addition to our 10 minute conventional whole-body PET/CT protocol. Compared to conventional static PET imaging, Q.Freeze demonstrates a better image quality and higher diagnostic accuracy in detecting small lung and liver lesions.”

Q.AC – GE Innovative Low Dose2 PET/CT Technology from GE Enables 0.3mSv3 whole body and 0.02mSv4 brain PET/CT studies

GE Healthcare has made a long term commitment to continuously improve the dose performance of our products. Minimizing both the radiation and the injected doses associated with the use of PET/CT is just as important as achieving greater image clarity. With the Discovery PET/CT 610 and 710, GE Healthcare has incorporated many unique innovations such as ASiR and Q.AC to maximize diagnostic confidence and quantitative consistency while minimizing dose.

Q.AC is designed to improve PET quantitative consistency even in the most clinically demanding circumstances. Professor Tatsch from Städtisches Klinikum, one of the first sites in the world to receive Q.AC, is routinely performing exceptionally low dose exams since the installation of the Discovery PET/CT 710 in his institution in October 2012. GE Healthcare’s General Manager for PET/CT, Wei Shen, commented, “We are very pleased and proud to see the great results achieved by Professor Tatsch – obtaining both excellent image quality and consistent quantitation measurements at effective CT doses as low as 0.3mSv for whole body PET/CT and 0.02mSv4 for Brain PET/CT studies.”

By combining the capabilities of Q.Suite with updated clinical practices, GE Healthcare believes the consistency of PET measurements can increase dramatically. And now with the Discovery PET/CT 610 as the most sensitive clinical PET/CT scanner, customers can combine the power of Q.Suite and the capabilities of the Discovery PET/CT 610 with the goal of providing a more personalized approach to help raise the standard of care for all patients.

† Discovery is a trademark of the General Electric Company.

*Source: ITN Online PET/CT Comparison Charts. May 2012: Represents typical system performance, measured according to NEMA Standards Publication NU2-2007. Sensitivity is defined as the number of counts per unit time detected by the device for each unit of activity present in a source, based on the average of measurements at 0 and 10 cm.

1Represents typical system performance of the Discovery PET/CT 610, measured according to NEMA Standards Publication NU2-2007. Sensitivity is defined as the number of counts per unit time detected by the device for each unit of activity present in a source, based on the average of measurements at 0 and 10cm.

2Q.AC lowers CT attenuation correction dose while maintaining accurate attenuation coefficients and ultimately improving PET quantitation consistency.

3Obtained by EUR-16262 EN, using an adult head factor of 0.0023*DLP, an adult neck factor of 0.0054*DLP, an adult thorax factor of 0,017*DLP, an abdomen factor of 0.015*DLP, an adult pelvis factor of 0,019*DLP and an adult lower limbs factor of 0.009*DLP

4Obtained by EUR-16262 EN, using an adult head factor of 0.0023*DLP


GE Healthcare at RSNA 2012

Each year in Chicago, the conference of the Radiological Association of North America (RSNA) provides a forum for showcasing the latest innovations in medical imaging. If you are attending the conference, please visit GE Healthcare at booth number 5433 in McCormick Place south hall. Throughout the week of the event, GE Healthcare will distribute news and information using these digital platforms:

· Digital press kit: newsroom.gehealthcare.com/press-kits/ge-healthcare-at-rsna-2012

· Twitter: @GEHealthcare and hashtag #GEWorks

· YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/gehealthcare

· Flickr: www.flickr.com/people/gehealthcare

· Instagram: instagram.com/generalelectric



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 increasing access and improving quality and affordability 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. For our latest news, please visit http://newsroom.gehealthcare.com.