At Medgadget we strive to write what readers want to know, so when we received an email asking us to check out a technology being displayed at RSNA, we did.
The email asked:
I was at RSNA on Monday and came across a device from a company named Imaging3 that purports to do 3d imaging in real time. Is this legitimate in your opinion? I understand that it is still awaiting FDA approval. If this is true, I can only imagine the possibilities. Thank you for any coverage you can provide.
We spoke with Imaging3 CEO Dean James regarding what his tech was about and he filled us in. He stressed that they were still waiting for FDA approval, but expected it in a few months. The device, called The Dominion Volumetric Imaging Scanner (DViS), is a fluoroscopic imaging unit put on a circular gantry. It circles around a patient and quickly produces a volumetric image of the region of interest. This could be useful for needle placement, trauma imaging, or vascular imaging (with injected contrast).
Here’s a company tour and device presentation (you might want to skip the first 3 minutes to get to the fun part):
Those are the basic facts of the device, but we were asked for our opinion. We think that this is a legitimate technology, since it seems logical that images from the known motion of a fluoroscope could be quickly combined to produce a volumetric image. However, the individual images would suffer the same limitations of a fluoroscope image, which may not matter for the purposes the company is intending the device for. Questions remain about the total radiation dose per procedure, for both patient and provider. It seems from the presentation we saw that it would fit a substantial niche between a CT and a fluoroscope guided procedure.
Product page: DViS (with more images and videos)…
Flashback: FDA OK’s Distribution of Dominion Vi 3D Fluoroscopy Scanner for Trial…
