Advanced Imaging Systems has hired Medical Technology Enterprises of San Diego to help guide its ultrasound holography system to market by year's end. AIS of Richland, WA, controls basic patents in holographic ultrasound, a technology that has been under development for over a decade (SCAN 3/14/90).
AIS presented a prototype holographic scanner at the 1990 Radiological Society of North America conference and again at the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine meeting in Atlanta last month. John C. Homan, president of MTE, was attracted to this unique technology at the RSNA meeting and signed a consulting contract with the firm shortly thereafter, he told SCAN.
A number of clinical researchers also expressed interest in the device at the RSNA exhibit, Homan said. MTE's first task will be to help select the most appropriate clinical testing sites for holographic system. AIS should be shipping units to five beta sites within 30 to 45 days. MTE will examine the results of this clinical testing to target markets for AIS and help choose the most appropriate product launch and distribution strategies, he said.
Homan, former vice president of marketing at Applied SuperConetics, left the magnet supplier to form his own consulting firm prior to Toshiba's acquisition of controlling interest in ASC last year. Another MTE consultant working on the AIS account is Dick Hollihan, former vice president of sales and service for Picker International. Homan is also a former Picker executive.
MTE specializes in bringing new medical technologies to market. The firm has, for instance, helped set up a supply arrangement between Dynamic Digital Displays, a three-dimensional workstation firm, and Shimadzu, Homan said.
The work for AIS will involve exploring OEM as well as distribution arrangements. Talks are already under way with several OEMs, Homan said.
"We have been in the industry long enough to look at those (marketing) options objectively. Dealers might make sense in a certain part of the country, but it might be better to sell direct elsewhere. We will also look at how to roll the product out successfully: which markets are going to lead the technology and which are not," he said.
ULTRASOUND HOLOGRAPHY SENDS an unfocused wave through a patient, which forms a real-time cine holographic image on videotape. This diagnostic modality is distinct from standard reflective ultrasound in both the method of image acquisition and the types of diagnostic information acquired, said George F. Garlick, AIS chairman.
Since a through transmission is required, certain types of imaging cannot be performed by holography. The method cannot be used to image the heart, for example, because the lungs would block the ultrasound wave from passing completely through the body. On the other hand, holography may provide new diagnostic information in applications such as breast and extremity imaging, Garlick said.
"There are many tubular structures in the forearm, so it is difficult or impossible to make a diagnosis of the forearm using (reflective) ultrasound. When you put in a through transmission, it (the forearm) is just like a bird cage. You can roll around and focus on any one of those segments," he said.
The holographic ultrasound scanner will sell for a price comparable to that of reflective scanners. One reason the price can be kept down is that holography does not require the complex electronics used in standard ultrasound imaging, Garlick said.
"The power of holography is that it allows one wave and another to interfere and then reads this out directly, rather than using a computer to make an electronic representation of the image. The image processor is a hologram, not a computer," he said.
BRIEFLY NOTED:
Trionix used the letter to announce a discount offer on both SPECT systems that is good through April. The company is offering prospective customers $25,000 off the regular $450,000 price for each system. It is also throwing in a medium-energy collimator and physicians' review station for no additional cost, said Kent D. Klodnick, product marketing manager.
