A Diagnostics & Imaging Week
Menssana Research (Fort Lee, New Jersey) has placed an additional order with Electronic Sensor Technology (EST; Newbury Park, California), a provider of innovative homeland security, environmental and healthcare solutions.
Michael Phillips, a medical innovator who uses breath analysis to screen for pulmonary diseases, founded Menssana Research. He has used the zNose vapor analyzer to analyze breath samples for biomarkers for lung cancer, breast cancer, heart transplant rejection and pulmonary tuberculosis (TB).
EST said that it believes the pioneering work of Phillips in the field of pre-screening will save many lives through early detection.
In other agreements/contracts:
• Bederra (Houston) reported that a large pain management center located in southwest Houston has chosen Bederra to provide MRI and other diagnostic services to patients. Based on the previous year's referrals to other clinics, it is anticipated this agreement could generate up to $400,000 in additional revenue for the company in fiscal 2009.
• Sentinelle Medical (Toronto), a maker of breast MRI coils and software and Siemens Healthcare (Malvern, Pennsylvania) reported an OEM distribution agreement for Sentinelle's Vanguard coils.
Under this agreement, Siemens will sell the Sentinelle Vanguard for Siemens coil for the MRI family members Magnetom Espree, Magnetom Avanto and Magnetom Symphony, a Tim System. The Sentinelle Vanguard for Siemens is also integrated into the new Magnetom Espree-Pink, a dedicated system devoted to excellence in MR breast care.
The agreement also anticipates future development collaborations.
Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in women. In 2008, 182,460 new cases were diagnosed and 40,480 women died of breast cancer in the U.S. The National Cancer Institute estimates that a woman has a 1-in-8 chance of developing breast cancer during her lifetime.
• The American Cancer Society's (Atlanta) new screening guidelines will impact up to 1 million high-risk women by recommending they receive additional annual MRI screenings. A high percentage of these women will benefit from breast MRI.
The Sentinelle Vanguard for Siemens enables excellent quality MR images of the breast and provides complete and open access for intervention with an award winning design that optimizes patient comfort and workflow. The coil is designed with Variable Coil Geometry, which allows the coil to accommodate a wide range of patient sizes, and increases signal-to-noise ratio delivering excellent image quality.
• Stratus Technologies (Maynard, Massachusetts) reported that Allen Technologies, (Scottsdale, Arizona) a provider of interactive patient communication systems, has adopted the high-availability capabilities of Stratus Avance software as a technology foundation for its flagship Vigo product line.
Allen Technologies' Vigo System serves the needs of three distinct clients: patients, healthcare providers and hospital IT staff. For patients, the Vigo system enables health care facilities to deliver basics, such as television, Internet, music, movies, VoIP and patient education. For caregivers, the Vigo System provides bedside access to a hospital's advanced clinical applications, such as medication management, X-rays and dietary systems. For hospital IT staff, the Vigo system provides high availability at various levels throughout its architecture, thereby minimizing service and maintenance issues.
By using the Avance Software and other failure avoidance techniques, the Vigo System replaces single points of failure with redundant systems. A unit may be an application, server or disk drive. If a unit fails, the Avance software rolls over automatically to a backup unit.