PowerVision 7000 is Toshiba highlight

A new version of its PowerVision premium ultrasound platform will be a highlight in the booth of Toshiba America Medical Systems (Hall A, #4351). PowerVision 7000 includes enhancements that result in better image quality for the scanner, especially in b-mode and color Doppler, according to Suzanne Certain, director of ultrasound marketing for the Tustin, CA, company.

Flash Echo Imaging, a new Toshiba technique for second harmonic imaging with contrast media, is to be shown as a work-in-progress. The technique builds on PowerVision's capacity for high frame-rate imaging by sending transmit beams in triggered pulses rather than in continuous beams. This helps clinicians better visualize changes in contrast enhancement and improves the quality of contrast studies, Certain said.

In CT, Toshiba will introduce Auklet, a new budget-priced CT scanner targeted at developing countries, such as the Asian and Latin American markets, according to John Zimmer, vice president of marketing. The system merges features found on Toshiba's Xvision CT series with a low-cost PC-based user interface.

The next generation of Toshiba's Aspire CI CT fluoroscopy mode will also be highlighted. Toshiba has developed a self-propelled CT gantry, which has all the Aspire CI capabilities for interventional work mounted on a miniplatform capable of moving up to 50 cm on a rail system. The configuration is used with Toshiba's IVR interventional radiology suite, which incorporates an Aspire CI scanner with an angiography suite. Using the new gantry design enables users to eliminate the specialized IVR CT patient table and use the table in the angio suite instead, thus lowering the price of an IVR room from $3 million to $1.5 million, Zimmer said.

In addition, Toshiba has migrated Aspire CI to all price points in its X-series product line, which essentially is all Toshiba CT products except for Auklet.

In x-ray and vascular imaging, Toshiba will introduce a new water-cooled vascular x-ray tube, which provides double the heat dissipation rate compared to what's available now, Zimmer said. A 1024 cardiac image review station will also be displayed, with an ATM point-to-point link.

New product news in x-ray will include 16-inch image intensifier tubes for the DUA radiography/fluoroscopy system and Max-1000 multipurpose system. A universal dual-plane system will be shown with 16-inch ceiling-mounted and 9-inch floor-mounted image intensifier tubes, which allows both cardiac and vascular/angio procedures in the same suite.

On the nuclear medicine side, Toshiba will display the Siemens E.Cam variable-angle dual-head gamma camera, to which Toshiba has rights under an OEM agreement signed in March (SCAN 4/2/97). Toshiba will show the system with its own nuclear medicine computer, which is based on a Sun Microsystems UltraSPARC platform.

Finally, the Opart cryogenless open MRI magnet will be featured. Toshiba will discuss feedback from its installed base of systems, which the company expects will approach 20 units in the U.S. by December.