The previously reported by us GE’s LightSpeed VCT System, has shown some pretty impressive cardiology credentials:
GE Healthcare, a unit of General Electric Company, announced today data from a clinical case study confirming that the LightSpeed VCT, GE’s ground-breaking volume computed tomography (CT) scanner, is capable of capturing images of the human heart in as few as five beats. The announcement was made at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association in Dallas.
The clinical case study data, collected by Dr. Jean-Louis Sablayrolles, head of CT Cardiac Imaging Radiology at Centre Cardiologique de Nord (CCN) in Saint-Denis, France, shows the LightSpeed VCT’s ability to scan the heart in five heart beats is a critical tool to help physicians improve the success rate of coronary CT imaging when compared with scan durations of 10 seconds or longer.
As a result, physicians are able to get clear images of a broader patient population than typical scans done by non-volume CT systems, according to Sablayrolles.
“This medical achievement in cardiac diagnosis is improving the standard of care for even those patients who previously were unable to undergo a non-invasive diagnosis because of poor breath hold,” said Sablayrolles. “The extreme speed and enhanced image quality of the LightSpeed VCT are enabling doctors at CCN to scan patients in the shortest amount of time possible while obtaining remarkable cardiac images.”
“After five seconds, the heart rate starts to increase due to hypoxia (breath hold), which is why GE’s five beat technology is so vital to helping to obtain the images to diagnose a very broad patient population,” said Sablayrolles.
Other clinical researchers also say they are experiencing significant benefits and improving cardiac imaging with the 5-Beat Cardiac(TM) application of the LightSpeed VCT.
“For the first time, using GE’s LightSpeed VCT images, physicians are able to non-invasively diagnose heart disease in at-risk patients, including patients who we were unable to scan previously due to either rapid heart beat or because they were unable to hold their breath long enough,” said Dr. Stanley Katz, chief, cardiology, North Shore University Hospital, Manhasset, NY.
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