UltraSPECT Dose NM/PET Reduction Systems Installed at Multiple Sites

August 23, 2011— UltraSPECT of Haifa, Israel, announced the sale of more than 10 of its wide beam reconstruction (WBR) software solutions to nuclear pharmaceutical supplier PCI for placement at customer medical facilities throughout Arizona. PCI is a member of United Pharmacy Partners Inc. (UPPI), a nuclear pharmacy network consortium that recently signed a multi-year distribution agreement for the leasing and/or non-exclusive sales of UltraSPECT’s cardiac and bone imaging applications in the United States.

WBR is an innovative technology addressing current concern about patient radiation exposure. It enhances the performance of gamma cameras and PET scanners to enable a 50 percent reduction in injected dose and/or imaging procedure time with no decrease in image quality and while enhancing image resolution.

WBR’s lower dose requirements offer the benefits of minimizing radiation exposure for both patients and technologists, while abbreviated acquisition times reduce the possibility of patient motion artifacts and enhance patient throughput and comfort. Higher image resolution provides greater lesion localization, raising diagnostic confidence and precision. For many WBR users, the result is enhanced equipment utilization, revenues, patient satisfaction and referrals.

UltraSPECT’s enhanced WBR can either cut 50 percent of standard radiopharmaceutical dose requirements or reduce imaging scan time to a quarter of what it was before, while maintaining full image quality. The most recent WBR application allows both reduction in dose and scan time. This technology can be utilized with most major manufacturers’ nuclear medicine (NM) and positron emission tomography (PET) systems, as well as all clinical software packages.

Tri-City Cardiology Consultants of Mesa, Ariz., recently acquired the technology through PCI. Commenting on its recent WBR installation, Michelle Smudde, office manager at the cardiology group, said, "WBR technology has been easily accepted by our physicians and technologists. The implementation of the software among our fellow practices went pretty quickly." 

Ridge Smidt, Pharm D., owner of PCI Nuclear Pharmacy, added, “The Tri-City WBR installation demonstrates the power of WBR in reducing patient radiation exposure without sacrificing image quality and diagnostic accuracy. If all our nuclear medicine customers were to adopt the technology and incorporate WBR into their general practice, everyone involved would benefit – patients, physicians, technologists, pharmacies and pharmacy staff.”

For more information: www.ultraspect.com, www.pcinuclear.com