GE dedicates dual-head to the heart

Two different approaches to the nuclear SPECT camera market wereon display at the RSNA meeting last month. There was some debateat the show over the benefits of dedicated versus general-purposenuclear cameras. GE offered a fixed-detector dual-head SPECT systemcalled Optima, dedicated for cardiac work.

"The needs of cardiac SPECT are such that if a hospitalcan justify a machine working almost entirely on cardiac procedures,a dedicated system makes sense," said John R. Haddock, vicepresident and general manager marketing and engineering for GEMedical Systems. "You optimize the design of the machinefor that application. It is also a simple design that costs less."

GE, which introduced its first triple-head camera--a dedicatedbrain unit--at the Society of Nuclear Medicine meeting earlierlast year, is also working on more general-purpose multi-headtechnology.

The vendor displayed information on a second dual-head systemunder development for whole-body applications. The unit will havea movable table that adds to scanning flexibility, Haddock said.

"This will be a very versatile unit. The heads can beset up to get a maximum field-of-view depending on whether youare trying to do whole-body or tomography," he said. GE shouldintroduce the second dual-head system sometime this year.

ADAC claimed at the RSNA meeting to have moved from the third-largestsupplier of SPECT cameras in the U.S. to first place last year,largely on the basis of its general-purpose dual-head Genesyscamera (see story, page 4).

"For the next few years, we believe leadership in thenuclear medicine market will go to whichever company can producecameras that can offer superior performance in more than justa single application," said ADAC president Stanley Czerwinski.

ADAC introduced a general-purpose, circular field-of-view cameraat the RSNA conference. The Cirrus camera has advanced engineeringbut retains the hands-on quality of a lower-end circular system,he said.

While it is robotically controlled, you can also walk up toit, grab hold and move the camera. It is simple to use,"he said.

ADAC licensed nuclear manufacturing rights last year and tookover inventory of circular field-of-view ARC 4000 cameras fromPhilips, which ceased new product development in nuclear medicine(SCAN 10/9/91). Cirrus, however, is largely based on technologydeveloped in-house, Czerwinski said.

ADAC will be putting a new camera into production every sixmonths for the next two years, he said.

Sopha introduced its variable-positioned dual-head SPECT system,the Sophycamera DSC, at last year's SNM exhibition and showedit again at the RSNA show. The camera heads can be angled forcardiac work or whole-body general imaging.

"Until this camera was shown, there was no camera thatcould provide both high cardiac efficiency and retain generalpurpose flexibility without a trade-off, said Randy Weatherhead,Sopha vice president of marketing.