Major ultrasound companies Siemens, GE, and Philips have all offered differing flavors of ultrasound elastography, and now Hitachi has entered the market with Hitachi Real-Time Tissue Elastography (HiRTE). Elastography is a technology that uses ultrasound to tell clinicians about the relative tissue hardness, approved in Europe for identifying firmer, possibly cancerous, regions of soft tissues such as liver, breast, and prostate. It uses the visualization of the propagation of mechanical waves through the tissue to derive either a shear wave velocity or a Young’s modulus as a measure of tissues stiffness. Hitachi’s claim about the measurement being real-time is in comparison to other providers of elastography which require post-processing of static images either at another workstation or after the image is taken. The Hitachi application will be part of its compact platform Hi Vision Avius.
From Diagnostic Imaging:
Hitachi Medical Systems has been a pioneer in the clinical development of elastography and is offering its own version of this technology, Hitachi Real-Time Tissue Elastography (HiRTE), as a key application on its new compact ultrasound platform, Hi Vision Avius, which follows last year’s launch of the Hi Vision Preirus.
The application is part of a package of advanced product features on the new machine, including established technologies such as Hi Rez+ (tissue adaptive filtering), HdTHI (high-definition dynamic tissue harmonic imaging) and Hi Com (frequency and spatial compounding), as well as new features such as RVS (real-time virtual sonography). The latter is a software application that uses magnetic tracking sensors on the ultrasound transducer to display real-time freehand ultrasound images alongside synchronous other images.
Elastography may also have applications in cases of rectal cancer.
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Product page: Hitachi Real-time Tissue Elastography (HI-RTE)…