GE Introduces Tools to Improve Quantitative PET SUV Readings

GE Healthcare today officially introduced Q.Suite, tools designed to improve PET for oncology treatment assessment by creating more consistent readings.

Thanks to its ability to indicate metabolic change, PET can reveal whether a given oncology treatment is working or not, even before a physical change in tumor size can show up in CT or MR images, according to Vivek Bhatt, general manager for PET at GE Healthcare.

But Standardized Uptake Value (SUV) readings have to be consistent for physicians to rely on data showing a change from the baseline. Variation control is needed.

Q.Suite offers stability through:
• Q.Freeze - Designed to be combine the quantitative benefits of 4D phase-matched PET/CT imaging into a single static image, eliminating motion, Q.Freeze is 510(k) pending at the FDA and is not available for sale in the United States.
• Q.Static - Adds basic motion correction techniques, reducing organ motion effects. The tool is meant to automatically isolate data when organs are in a low-motion state. The result is a single image series with reduced blurring from organ motion.
• Q.AC - An algorithm is designed to reduce potential variance in attenuation correction measurements, helping ensure that the attenuation coefficients used in image reconstruction are accurate.
• Q.Check - Establishes a link between the console and workstation to ensure that patient and exam data required for quantitative imaging is saved in the patient file before the exam is finished.
• Q.Core - Manages both PET acquisition and reconstruction processing at faster speeds.
• PET VCAR - Provides access to quantitative information, managing multiple lesions and multiple patient exams over time. PET VCAR now supports PERCIST.

GE also announced its new Discover PET/CT 710, capable of 128-slice imaging, and stressed its research on developing a fully integrated PET/MR.