High-end features filter down to portable Logiq Book XP unit

GE Healthcare is bringing sonography closer to the point of injury and care. Its Logiq Book XP is designed for emergency departments, private physicians' offices, and even the locker rooms of professional athletes. One of the first XPs installed at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit was taken to the National Hockey League Red Wings' practices and games to obtain data for diagnostic overreads.

Released on Oct. 14, Logiq Book XP will start shipping in November. In a standard configuration consisting of a single probe with a cart and a black-and-white printer, the system will run about $35,000. The addition of two probes, 3D, or DICOM compatibility will bump the price about $10,000.

The XP is the latest iteration of the Logiq Book platform, which entered the market in 2002. It is built on the same TruScan Architecture as its compact predecessor and its full-sized, cart-based siblings Logiq 9, Logiq 7, and Logiq 5. It also includes features that have migrated from the high-end Logiq series, such as virtual convex, which provides a convex field-of-view for linear and sector transducers. The new portable therefore offers the power found in cart-based ultrasound systems in a compact, 10-pound package, said Jeff Peiffer, manager of global market and business development for GE's compact ultrasound business.

New to Logiq Book XP is a phased-array capacity built into its 3S-RS transducer, which allows quick scanning assessment of the heart and abdomen. Two new surgical probes, the i739-RS and the t739-RS, extend the XP to intraoperative studies. The XP's linear probe takes advantage of trapezoidal imaging to capture 20% more information and at the same time maintain image quality. Harmonics, which were absent from the previous Logiq Book, have been added to the XP's phased-array and convex transducers to improve image quality.

Logiq Book XP also enhances overall imaging productivity by accelerating processing and expanding storage. A faster processor increases image acquisition speeds by a factor of two, depending on the type of scan, Peiffer said. The portable system also can store more than 30,000 images. The system has flexible, customizable options for printing images, converting scans to jpegs or cine loops, or transmitting them to distant sites across a network.

Designed to function over a range of institutional and clinical settings, from radiology departments to interventional suites and sports medicine environments, Logiq Book XP exemplifies the overall thrust of the portable ultrasound market. For the last two years, the market for compact ultrasound has been growing at an annual rate of 15% to 20%. Peiffer doesn't see it slowing down, as advances in high-end ultrasound systems filter down to hand-carried products.

"A lot of the technology at the high end can be migrated to more compact systems as the technology becomes available for miniaturization," he said. "So there's a lot of growth ahead of us, both at the high-end and on the compact side."