Volcano Announces U.S. and European Launch of Rotational IVUS and Integrated FFR

SAN DIEGO, March 28, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ -- Volcano Corporation (Nasdaq: VOLC), a leading manufacturer and developer of intravascular ultrasound (IVUS), functional measurement (FM) and Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) products designed to enhance the diagnosis and treatment of coronary and peripheral vascular disease, announced today the U.S. and European launch of the s5-Revo and s5-FFR (fractional flow reserve) options for the s5i integrated Imaging platform. These two new product options now enable rotational IVUS and FFR to operate on the same integrated Volcano s5i Integrated Imaging System as Volcano's previous line of phased array IVUS catheters and functionality. For the first time, physicians can choose among three powerful diagnostic tools -- all on the same integrated IVUS platform.

Scott Huennekens, president and chief executive officer of Volcano, commented, "By adding high resolution rotational IVUS and pressure-based FFR to our already highly successful phased array s5 imaging platform, we will be providing a level of technology, clinical utility and convenience that is un-matched in the intravascular imaging field. No other company provides a system that integrates this level of functionality and convenience in a single platform. Our message now is simple: Volcano offers physicians all three technologies on one system -- you can choose which technology is best for your patient and clinical team."

source: Volcano Corporation

Avoid Fetal "Keepsake" Images, Heartbeat Monitors

(HealthNewsDigest.com) - While ultrasonic fetal scanning is generally considered a safe medical procedure, the use of it for unapproved and unintended purposes raises concerns.

The use of ultrasound imaging devices for producing fetal keepsake videos is viewed as an unapproved use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Doppler ultrasound heartbeat monitors are not intended for over-the-counter (OTC) use. Both products are approved for use only with a prescription.

"Although there are no known risks of ultrasound imaging and heartbeat monitors, the radiation associated with them can produce effects on the body," says Robert Phillips, Ph.D., a physicist with FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH). "When ultrasound enters the body, it heats the tissues slightly. In some cases, it can also produce small pockets of gas in body fluids or tissues."

source: HealthNewsDigest

Gov signs ultrasound-fetus bill

COLUMBUS – Medical clinics must offer to show pregnant women ultrasound images of their fetuses before carrying out abortions, under legislation signed Friday by Gov. Ted Strickland.

Physicians risk losing their license to practice medicine in Ohio if they fail to comply with the law, which takes effect in 90 days. The bill was sponsored by state Rep. Shannon Jones, a Republican from Springboro.

A similar bill is proposed in the Kentucky General Assembly. But unlike Ohio’s new law – in which a physician can have his license suspended or revoked for not complying – a Northern Kentucky lawmaker proposes fines of up to $100,000 for the first offense.

source: The Enquirer

Philips Offers Improved Ultrasound for Obese Patients

Barbara Kram

The rising prevalence of obesity in the U.S. and globally has challenged ultrasound systems to penetrate fatty tissue more effectively to obtain diagnostic views. Up to half of all abdominal ultrasound exams are conducted on large patients.

Fortunately, this technical challenge coincides with some cutting-edge R&D from Philips to develop a new type of crystal that can penetrate fatty tissue to reveal pathology beneath.

It's helpful to understand that ultrasound transducers use a piezoelectric material to deliver the ultrasound energy to the scanned tissue and convert resulting echoes into electrical signals. However, today's widely used crystal type, known as PZT, has its limitations, achieving only about 70% efficiency. A better type of piezocrystal has been discovered but has proven difficult to grow. Philips engineers have been working on this problem and made recent breakthroughs in both crystal growth and crystal properties.
source: DotMed News

The Transformational Role of Hand-Carried Ultrasound

Hand-carried ultrasound (HCU) is a powerful front-line medical tool and has the potential to be deployed effectively by a wide array of clinical personnel from medics to nurse practitioners to specialists.

By bringing ultrasound visualisation and guidance to the point-of-patient care, physicians are able to provide better, more comprehensive care and increase patient safety while improving their productivity and efficiency. More and more, HCU is viewed as an essential, everyday tool in clinical practice and for the practice of good medicine in general.

Significantly less expensive than their cart-based counterparts and with comparable image quality, SonoSite's hand-carried ultrasound systems can make a genuine difference to hospital working practices and patient care. HCU systems are able to deliver solutions that improve patient care, reduce costs and increase department efficiency.

source: Express Healthcare

Chip Advances Take Ultrasound Mobile

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- The patient would not respond. It was two hours after a heart attack, and his blood pressure was in free fall. Using a device the size of a Game Boy, doctors at St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital in New York discovered his heart was being compressed by pooling fluid and rushed him to surgery.

The quick assessment was made possible by a portable ultrasound machine from Siemens AG (SI) dubbed the P10, the smallest currently on the market. Such gadgets could become a vital tool in emergency medicine and perhaps even the stethoscope of the future, says Dr. Eyal Herzog, director of the cardiac care unit at St. Luke's, which is testing the P10.

source and complete article: CNN Money

GE Healthcare Grows #1 Market Leadership Position in Global Compact Ultrasound Industry in 2007

WAUKESHA, Wis.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--GE Healthcare continues as the global market share leader in the compact ultrasound industry in 2007, as cited in a recent industry report issued by Klein Biomedical Consultants, an internationally recognized source of ultrasound market and trends. GE announced today the company’s global compact ultrasound business grew revenues to $260 million in 2007, growing 50 percent compared to the prior year. This surpasses the 42 percent worldwide industry market growth for compact ultrasound in 2007, as cited in the Klein report.

The company’s compact revenues were $47 million above its nearest competitor, according to the report.

Harvey Klein, president of Klein Biomedical, stated in the report, “GE is expected to continue its worldwide market leadership position through the year 2010 (the end of the report’s forecast period).”

pres release

ZONARE Highlights New Software, Hardware and Transducer Technology

ZONARE Highlights New Software, Hardware and Transducer Technology for Its Next Generation Premium Convertible Ultrasound(TM) Platform at AIUM

SAN DIEGO, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 03/12/08 -- AIUM Booth #313 -- ZONARE Medical Systems, Inc. will showcase upgrades including new software, hardware and transducer technology for its z.one ultra system -- the company's next generation premium Convertible Ultrasound(TM) platform -- here at the 2008 American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine (AIUM) annual conference, March 12-15, 2008.

"The mobility and flexibility of the z.one system highlight significant improvements in the way diagnostic care is administered today," said Bruce Silver, M.D., chairman of Radiology at Swedish Covenant Hospital in Chicago. "Specifically, the portability of the system is extremely important because it allows us to take the small unit up to the intensive care unit to do procedures, and then back down to review at a larger monitor.

source: Sys Con Media

GE Healthcare Launches Diagnostic Advancements On Premier Women's Health Ultrasound System At AIUM 2008

SAN DIEGO, MARCH 12, 2008 - GE Healthcare launched enhancements to its premier ultrasound system for obstetrics and gynecology, the Voluson E8 Breakthrough 2008, at the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine (AIUM) Annual Meeting, March 12-15 in San Diego. GE’s new proprietary software program, Sonography-based Automated Volume Count (SonoAVC), delivers an efficient method of calculating the number and volume of ovarian follicles. This is an initial step in assisted reproductive medicine. The Voluson E8 Breakthrough 2008 also features improved probe imaging capabilities, which enable clinicians to see more anatomical detail. GE, the global leader in ultrasound, also showcased its leading console and compact LOGIQ systems to improve patient care in radiology and emergency medicine.

The dilemma of infertility affects approximately 80 million people globally; in the U.S., approximately 6.1 million couples have difficulty conceiving, about 10-15 percent of the U.S. population, according to the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the National Women’s Health Resource Center (NWHRC).

source: GE Healthcare

ACC issues appropriateness criteria for stress echo

Lisa Nainggolan

Durham, NC - The American College of Cardiology (ACC) together with a number of other organizations, including the American Society of Echocardiography (ASE), has issued appropriateness criteria for stress echocardiography [1]. They are copublished online March 3, 2008 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Circulation, and Catheterization and Cardiovascular Interventions.

Lead author Dr Pamela S Douglas (Duke Clinical Research Institute, Durham, NC) told heartwire the criteria are the latest in a line covering all noninvasive tests and are designed to help practitioners best determine the situations in which stress echo should be used and to help inform reimbursement policy.

complete article: theheart.org

Siemens Showcases Latest Ultrasound Technologies at AIUM 2008

SAN DIEGO, March 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Siemens Healthcare (www.siemens.com/healthcare) highlights three new ultrasound solutions - the ACUSON S2000(TM) ultrasound platform with paradigm shifting technologies such as tissue strain analytics, and the ACUSON X300(TM) ultrasound system, premium edition, a complete solution to general imaging and cardiovascular applications, and the laptop-based ACUSON P50(TM) echocardiography system - at the annual conference of the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine (AIUM), March 12-15, in San Diego.

The ACUSON S2000 is the first system of Siemens' new generation of ultrasound products and is the company's new premier general imaging platform. Its paradigm-shifting strain imaging and quantification capabilities, Virtual Touch(TM) tissue imaging and Virtual Touch tissue quantification*, use acoustic energy to displace tissue for a qualitative and quantitative assessment of deep tissue stiffness, the world's first implementation of Acoustic Radiation Force Impulse (ARFI) imaging. Current research suggests that this type of assessment may be useful for differentiation of abnormalities, such as liver tumors or the quantification of fibrosis progression.

source: Rehab Management

West Virginia's Largest Healthcare Provider Signs Ultrasound Agreement With ZONARE Medical Systems

West Virginia United Health System to Install 12 z.one Ultrasound Systems Throughout Multiple Departments

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., March 11, 2008 – ZONARE Medical Systems Inc., a developer of premium ultrasound systems, announced it has signed an agreement with West Virginia United Health System (WVUHS), the largest healthcare provider in the state, for the purchase and installation of 12 z.one ultrasound systems in 2008. WVUHS has already installed seven of the systems in various clinical settings including anesthesiology, emergency medicine, interventional radiology and maternal fetal medicine.

source: Zonare

SonoSite, Inc. (NASDAQ:SONO), the world leader and specialist in point-of-care, hand-carried ultrasound, said that its new S-Nerve™ ultrasound tool ha

SonoSite, Inc. (NASDAQ:SONO), the world leader and specialist in point-of-care, hand-carried ultrasound, said that its new S-Nerve™ ultrasound tool has received a design award from the prestigious International Forum (iF) in the Health+Care category. An international jury evaluated 2,771 entries based on design, functionality, esthetics, innovation, workmanship and choice of materials.

The S-Nerve tool, part of SonoSite's recently introduced S Series™ product line, is custom designed to support the visualization needs of anesthesiologists performing regional anesthesia. Its breakthrough image quality, speed and simplicity were designed with input from leading practitioners who expressed a substantive need for a small, high-performance tool designed to function exclusively for guidance of regional nerve blocks and central line placement.

source: Sonosite

Frost & Sullivan Lauds Terason for Innovative Ultrasound Systems

NewswireToday - /newswire/ - Palo Alto, CA, United States, 03/10/2008 - Frost & Sullivan recognizes Terason\ – a division of Teratech Corporation with the 2007 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Technology Innovation in recognition of its development of two innovative ultrasound systems, the Terason t3000™ and the t3000.

Based on its recent analysis of the portable ultrasound systems market, Frost & Sullivan recognizes Terason – a division of Teratech Corporation– with the 2007 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Technology Innovation in recognition of its development of two innovative ultrasound systems, the Terason t3000™ and the t3000 Echo™.

"The significance of these system lies in its best-in-class image quality and function that are comparable to the high-end cart-based ultrasound systems but only at a fraction of the price," says Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Sangeetha Prabakar. "They are the world's only ultrasound systems powered by an off the shelf commercial PC."

Newswire Today

Philips Announces HD7 Ultrasound System With High Performance And Versatility

Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI) announced the latest addition to its HD ultrasound family of products at the European Congress of Radiology (ECR) in Vienna. The Philips HD7 ultrasound system draws upon an array of features and capabilities available on high-end Philips systems and puts them into an affordable, mobile unit that is well-suited for a wide variety of clinical settings.

The system provides grayscale and color Doppler imaging with simple one button optimization, as well as Tissue Harmonic Imaging. In addition, the HD7 features a wide array of transducers, an adjustable flat panel monitor, proven system architecture and software, and advanced imaging, measurement and quantification technologies.

source: Medical News Today

Sufferers of tongue cancer offered hope by university ultrasound technique

A pioneering technique in identifying the gravity of tongue tumors discovered by Hong Kong University will improve treatment, speed diagnosis and raise survival rates.

Adapted by professor Anthony Yuen Po-wing, ultrasound sensors, traditionally used for scanning skin, have been used to determine the thickness of tongue cancer tumors, eliminating dangerous guesswork when surgeons determine how much or how little of the tumor to extract.

"Traditionally, we could only measure the diameter or length of a tumor, and you wouldn't know its thickness until you do a neck dissection," Yuen said. "It can be dangerous guesswork when excising the tumor without knowing the thickness, because if you take too much it will further reduce the patient's speaking and swallowing functions. If you take too little, the cancer will recur."

source: The Standard