Picker fine-tunes STEP at SNM meeting

Picker International's booth at the Society of Nuclear Medicinemeeting highlighted the vendor's second generation of productintroductions stemming from the launch of its simultaneous transmission-emissionprotocol (STEP) photon attenuation correction technique two yearsago.

The Cleveland company will introduce Converge, an investigationalenhancement to STEP that further improves image quality by fine-tuningthe geometric point response of the camera, according to JoshGurewitz, marketing manager.

Converge addresses partial volume effect, a form of image degradationcaused by differences in the physical distance between variouspoints of the targeted anatomy and the camera, Gurewitz said.It works by enhancing the remaining scatter component and correctingfor the point-spread function of the collimator, he said.

Converge will be available as an upgrade to STEP on the triple-headPrism 3000XP and will be a standard feature on a modificationof STEP earmarked for use on the dual-head Prism 2000XP. Internationalsales of the dual-head product will begin this summer. Food andDrug Administration 510(k) clearance is pending in the U.S.

Picker will also show NeuroFlow, a new xenon-133 brain imagingpackage for the 3000XP (SCAN 4/24/96). The FDA-cleared product,which quantifies regional cerebral blood flow, was developed withthe assistance of Dr. Michael Devous, associate director of nuclearmedicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Centerin Dallas.