GE Healthcare Enhances Workflow in Echo Lab, OR and Cath Lab with Vivid E9 Cardiovascular Ultrasound, Now Including 4D TEE Transducer

25 April 2012

GE Healthcare Enhances Workflow in Echo Lab, OR and Cath Lab with Vivid E9 Cardiovascular Ultrasound, Now Including 4D TEE Transducer

 

Latest Version of Vivid E9 with 4D TEE Transducer and Additional Efficiency Tools Receives FDA Clearance

Wauwatosa, WISCONSIN — April 25, 2012 — GE Healthcare, a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE), today announced the FDA clearance and availability of the latest version of its Vivid E9™ cardiovascular ultrasound system. The Vivid E9 Breakthrough 2012 (BT12) includes a 4D transducer for transesophageal echocardiography (TEE), and also provides innovative tools designed to help improve workflow efficiency through simplified image acquisition, intuitive navigation and advanced, yet easy to use quantification.

While Vivid E9 is currently used most frequently in the echo lab, the availability of the 4D TEE transducer enables the system to be used more often in settings including the cath lab, and the operating room. The TEE transducer will allow clinicians to view precise images of the heart during assessment/diagnosis performed in the echo lab, and to support invasive surgical procedures in the operating room, as well as image-guided procedures in the cath lab. With the TEE transducer, Vivid E9 can now be leveraged for procedures including mitral valve repair,transcatheter aortic valve repair (TAVR/TAVI), atrial septal defect (ASD) closures and patent foraman ovale (PFO) closures.

“With a recent increase in TEE procedures, our customers in the cath lab, echo lab and operating room have been looking for ways to achieve the benefits of 4D imaging without compromising productivity,” said Al Lojewski, General Manager of Cardiovascular Ultrasound at GE Healthcare. “Our Vivid E9 system was designed to help make 4D imaging easier and more efficient. With the new 4D TEE transducer as well as several important workflow enhancements, this latest version of Vivid E9 underscores our commitment to making 4D imaging accessible and efficient across the continuum of care in cardiology.”

“The new 4D transesophageal probe developed by GE Healthcare is an advanced diagnostic tool,” said Dr. Luigi P. Badano of the University of Padua, Padua, Italy. “It combines ease-of-use and flexibility to acquire 4D data sets, user-friendly navigation tools that allow users to quickly visualize the cardiac structure of interest, and effective quantification software to quantitate left ventricular pump function, myocardial deformation and mitral valve morphology.”

The Vivid E9 BT12 also includes several features that are new to cardiovascular ultrasound, and which are designed to enhance 4D imaging and workflow. These include the industry’s first configurable TEE transducer, a new tilt and rotate function, and a live “2-Click Crop” tool. Workflow enhancements can also be achieved during mitral valve acquisition with a dedicated MV button and during quantification with a new plug-in tool that has the potential to decrease assessment time.

“Vivid E9 BT12 with the new 4D TEE probe has worked great, especially during our intense first two days of MitraClip^TM procedures,” said Prof. Reidar Winter of the Karolinska University Hospital Stockholm, Sweden. “The system has tools like Biplane Prepare, Biplane Tilt/Rotate and Laser Lines that help optimize guidance of the catheter septal puncture as well as the mitral clip positioning, which has the potential to reduce procedure time.”

Vivid E9 BT12 is also CE Marked and available for sale across Europe and many countries around the world.

New features help improve image quality, quantification and workflow and include:

Simplified Image Acquisition

• Triplane imaging, 4D views, and high frame rates for both TTE and TEE procedures
• One-button acquisition of mitral valve images
• In biplane mode, the ability to tilt and rotate at the same time, e.g. to more accurately image the mitral valve during a MV clip procedure
• A new QuickRotate button provides consistency and accuracy by allowing users to rotate an image in 30 degree increments with a single click
• Enhanced zoom capabilities allow for high volume rates in a single- and multibeat in 4D and 4D color zoom mode using FlexiZoom

Intuitive Navigation

• 2-Click Crop, a quick and intuitive way of obtaining any 4D view in both live and replay modes
• Laser lines, a new tool to help understand the relationship between 2D slices, and 4D views, help to visualize the linkage between 2D and 4D, and also helps improve depth perception
• New “one-stop-shop” slice tool, FlexiSlice, provides full flexibility for the user to slice in any direction, 2D view or render view in both live and replay modes

Advanced Quantification

• A new MV Assessment plug-in from TomTec available on EchoPAC™ BT 12:
  • Increases productivity during mitral valve assessment
  • Provides a set of static and dynamic measurements describing the mitral valve anatomy.

• An automated left ventricular volume and EF quantification tool (4D Auto LVQ) also for TEE

About GE Healthcare
GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our broad expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, drug discovery, biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies, performance improvement and performance solutions services help our customers to deliver better care to more people around the world at a lower cost. In addition, we partner with healthcare leaders, striving to leverage the global policy change necessary to implement a successful shift to sustainable healthcare systems.

Our “healthymagination” vision for the future invites the world to join us on our journey as we continuously develop innovations focused on reducing costs, increasing access and improving quality around the world. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE). Worldwide, GE Healthcare employees are committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries.  For more information about GE Healthcare, visit our website at www.gehealthcare.com.