BioScanIR® System by OmniCorder Technologies, Inc. has received Frost & Sullivan’s 2005 Medical Imaging in Cancer & Vascular Disease Diagnostics Product Leadership of the Year Award.
Company describes its system:
The BioScanIR System is an infrared-based functional imaging system that detects minute changes in blood perfusion through the capture of passively-emitted infrared radiation that is produced by tissue. Through the analysis of this captured radiation, the system can help physicians and researchers differentiate between normal and abnormal tissue. In this fashion, the BioScanIR System can detect diseases and conditions that affect the perfusion or reperfusion of blood in tissue and organs.
The BioScanIR System is totally non-invasive, and does not contact the patient in any way. It uses no radiation, and requires no contrast agent. It can be used by non-imaging specialists, and can be used in a non-sterile, office environment. The BioScanIR System has multiple clinical applications including:
— Monitoring response to cancer drug therapy.
— Monitoring intervention in diabetic driven peripheral vascular disease.
— Identifying perforator vessels during pre-surgical planning, and assessing post-operative perfusion of pedicle flaps following reconstructive surgery (i.e. of the breast).
— Mapping of functional cortex in patients undergoing tumor surgery.
— Determining cardiac bypass graft patency and perfusion of the myocardium in cardiac surgery.
The BioScanIR System can be used adjunctively with more expensive modalities such as CT, MRI, functional MRI and PET imaging.
To read more about the system that is based on an infrared detector technology called QWIP (Quantum Well Infrared Photodetector) produced by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for use in the Star Wars Missile Defense program, expand the window:
QWIP, an extraordinarily sensitive infrared sensor, was designed to detect missile flare. It is a long-wave (8-10 mcm), narrow-band, focal-plane-array infrared detector. It consists of a 256 x 256-pixel array with approximately 65,000 pixels/frame that can resolve a 0.009C difference in temperature between pixels and a temporal resolution of 100 Hz. The QWIP’s spatial resolution is 40 mcm with more than a 99.5% yield of operating pixels.
OmniCorder has taken this breakthrough sensor technology and added patented software and processing algorithms trademarked under the name Dynamic Infrared Imaging (DIRI®). DIRI was pioneered at the State University of New York and refined by OmniCorder. Both QWIP and DIRI technologies are deployed in the BioScanIR® System as part of a complete, self-contained, mobile imaging solution that includes all the hardware and software necessary for calibration, data acquisition, image processing, analysis and report generation.
The DIRI software runs on dual 3.06 GHz Pentium IV Xeon processors with 4 gigabyte of RAM, over a terabyte of disk space, a DVD/CD-ROM RW drive and a frame grabber board. The counter-balanced control arm permits the camera to be adjusted to virtually any room height, and the camera can be adjusted to point in any direction and on any axis. The heavy duty power back-up components protect the system from power fluctuations and provide sufficient power to unplug and transport the system without powering it down.
The BioScanIR® System offers a much lower cost functional imaging modality when compared to CT, MRI, functional MRI, and PET, and can currently be used adjunctively with these modalities. Its non-invasive, non-toxic attributes allow the BioScanIR® to be used as often as necessary, something that cannot be said for PET, CT, or MRI. Such properties make the BioScanIR® the compassionate choice, especially when treating the elderly, the infirmed or children who have little or no tolerance for the effects of contrast agents, or who have to be sedated or anesthetized due to the discomfort or claustrophobia caused by alternative methods such as PET, PET/CT or MRI.
The BioScanIR System is an FDA-approved device.
More at OmniCorder Technologies…
