A Medical Device Daily

Misonix (Farmingdale, New York) reported that its Sonora Medical Systems (Longmont, Colorado) subsidiary, a supplier of after-market products, services and test equipment to the medical imaging market, presented an ultrasound probe study at the annual clinical engineering meeting held recently in Goteborg, Sweden.

The paper, which was presented by the School for Technology and Health, the Royal Technical University, and the biomedical engineering and clinical physiology departments of Karolinska University Hospital, was titled "Defective ultrasound transducers in Swedish hospitals."

Using the Sonora FirstCall probe testing system, the authors tested 704 probes in clinical use from 30 hospitals, representing seven ultrasound manufacturers. They found that 39.8% of the transducers tested had functional failures and that there was no statistical difference in the number of probe failures discovered on systems under service contract or not on service contract.

Among the conclusions presented was that "tests of transducers on a regular basis is, in our opinion, a necessity in order to minimize the risk that defective transducers are in use in our hospitals."

G. Wayne Moore, president/CEO of Sonora, said, "We have long known that as few as two dead elements in a transducer can materially impact the spectral Doppler in terms of both spectral broadening and mean velocity errors. Previously published studies on transducers in clinical use have shown 25% to 30% have undiagnosed functional failures."

He added: "The Swedish study underscores the need to test transducers on a regular basis to insure the clinical efficacy of the ultrasound examination, as well as the safety of the patient. The FirstCall transducer tester has become a standard in hospitals around the world in insuring the proper functionality of these ultrasound transducers."

Moore said Sweden has more First Calls per capita than any other country and requires First Call testing of probes prior to their use.

Sonora Medical's Test Instrument Division offers a wide range of ultrasound test equipment for original equipment manufacturers as well as hospital physicists, clinical and biomedical engineers.

New association for sarcoma patients

European advocacy and support groups working with patients who have some of the rarest cancers have agreed to form a collaborative association.

Sarcoma Patients EuroNet (SPAEN; London) will start work in January with the aim of extending information services, patient support and advocacy so that patients across the whole of Europe can benefit. Five patient groups in Germany, France and the UK are the founding members of SPAEN, and membership of the association is open to patient groups anywhere in Europe who work with sarcoma patients.

In many European countries, sarcoma is a "forgotten cancer." There is little understanding in the healthcare system of the patient benefit that specialist treatment centers offer or of the better patient outcomes which come from doctors who regularly treat these rare cancers. Many patients get no access to information about their disease or their treatments, and without access to the internet knowledge of new treatments is hard to come by.

Sarcomas account for about 1% of all cancers diagnosed, but there are about 50 different sub-types, and these tumors can appear almost anywhere on or in the body.

SPAEN organizers say the group will organize training to help patient groups understand sarcoma, and advise patients wishing to create new advocacy groups. The members will share their resources (leaflets, information, books etc) and develop new material for patients under the SPAEN banner.

SPAEN is being supported by the pan-European collaboration of sarcoma specialist researchers and doctors, Conticanet. The two associations will work together to ensure that information on clinical trials is widely promoted and accessible to patients.

CE mark for Zynex devices

Zynex (Littleton, Colorado), a provider of pain management systems and electrotherapy products for medical patients with functional disability, reported the receipt of the CE mark for its IF8000 and IF8100 devices, allowing their sale in Europe.

CEO Thomas Sandgaard said, "We ... now have a total of four of our products covered by CE marking for sales in Europe."

Zynex manufactures electrotherapy medical devices in two segments: standard digital electrotherapy products for pain relief and pain management; and the NeuroMove for stroke and spinal cord injury rehabilitation.

Its products are directed toward helping improve the quality of life for patients suffering from impaired mobility due to stroke, spinal cord injury, or debilitating and chronic pain.