A Medical Device Daily

Longport International , the UK subsidiary of Longport (Glen Mills, Pennsylvania), is the lead participant in a $2 million project to develop a high resolution, phase-array ultrasound imaging system, partly supported by a grant from the UK’s Department of Trade & Industry .

The system under development will be capable of imaging at center frequencies greater than 25 MHz as well as at lower frequencies, according to the company, and is expected to exceed the imaging resolution of all current commercial multi-element ultrasound systems.

The project involves the University of Manchester , Phoenix Inspection and Newbury Electronics . The system under development will combine very high performance with affordability through the use of novel transducer and system designs and the development of specialist integrated circuits.

Initial applications for this system are expected to be cancer imaging, including the mapping of skin cancers, wound assessment and prevention and superficial musculoskeletal imaging as well as specialist engineering inspections.

Lord Sainsbury, UK Science and Innovation Minister, said, “This initiative provides a real opportunity to harness the world class expertise that we possess in the UK and direct it towards the task of wealth creation. By providing a focus for collaboration and delivery, this partnership should establish British industry as the world leader in this area and be an attractive proposition for investors.”

Paul Wilson, managing director of Longport International, termed the project “a logical evolution of Longport’s established medical imaging technology. The development is expected to bring the benefits of faster imaging as well as a broader range of image enhancement and processing techniques, including Doppler imaging, to Longport’s current customer groupings.”

Viatronix reports 14 hospital installs

Viatronix (Stony Brook, New York) reported the installation of its V3D Colon module for virtual colonoscopy at 14 hospitals throughout France and that it expects to install at other sites in the coming months.

All the hospitals are taking part in the STIC trial under the direction of Denis Heresbach, a gastroenterologist, and Yves Gandon, a radiologist, from Rennes, France. The clinical trial, to begin shortly, is expected to take 24 months to complete.

“All the sites have been equipped with the latest version of the robust and well-known Viatronix V3D-Colon platform that provides unique workflow optimized tools,” said Zaffar Hayat, president of Viatronix. “Some of the hospitals in France that have already used the Viatronix V3D-Colon software find it to be user friendly and its unique diagnostic tools to be of great help in patient diagnosis.

“The latest version provides optimized automatic post processing, enhanced electronic cleansing, interactive 2D and 3D windows, and proven diagnostic tools such as missed regions, supine and prone registration, automatic center line and translucent rendering that are available on the fly; allowing a radiologist to seamlessly read a case in under 10 minutes.”

Zaffar Hayat, president of Viatronix, said, “Radiologist Training for the virtual colonoscopy exam is an important function as highlighted in some of the earlier publications and by many leaders in the industry. To this end Viatronix has worked with leading radiologists in France and elsewhere to develop a strong training program for radiologists.”

Viatronix is a developer of 2D/3D medical imaging and diagnostic software, enabling physicians to interactively view vital organs and anatomical structures within the body from data acquired by standard medical imaging equipment in minimally or non-invasive methods.

Liverpool to get new cancer emphasis

Three major Liverpool cancer service providers will collaborate in a multi-million-pound project in new cancer therapies. The University of Liverpool , the Royal Liverpool University Hospital (RLUH) and the Clatterbridge Centre for Oncology (CCO) will combine their resources to provide improved treatment for various cancers, including head and neck, lung and lymphoma.

The merger also will serve to establish the Liverpool Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre (LECMC) to facilitate clinical trials of new cancer therapies. The center, funded by 750,000 from Cancer Research UK , will include the addition of beds for cancer patients at RLUH to participate in cancer trials as well as a new Chair of Medical Oncology, to oversee the trials and related projects. The LECMC’s resources will be accessible to external users in science and industry. The LECMC also will be supported by a 1.1 million transfer of six cancer specialists from the Clatterbridge Cancer Research Trust on Wirral to the University of Liverpool Cancer Research Centre (ULCRC).

Professor John Caldwell, dean of the Faculty of Medicine, said: “Liverpool plays a vital role in the development of new treatments for cancer — 15.2% of cancer patients in the area are recruited to trials — one of the highest rates in the UK. The merge with our cancer research partners will allow us to double the number of patients to early phase clinical trials as well as increase the capacity for treating cancer patients.”

The developments are part of an overall 20 million investment in cancer research and follow the recent launch of the University’s School of Cancer Studies, newly created to focus entirely on research for new cancer treatments and therapies, incorporating the former Divisions of Surgery and Oncology, Haematology; and Pathology.

Trial backs carotid surgery vs. stents

A trial conducted in France, comparing surgery to stents for preventing strokes in patients with carotid artery blockage, was cut short because it quickly became evident that surgery was twice as effective as stents, according to researchers at the Hospital Sainte-Anne (Paris).

In the study, “Endarterectomy versus Stenting in Patients with Symptomatic Severe Carotid Stenosis,” reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers found that twice as many patients had a stroke 30 days and six months after being given a stent, when compared to patients who underwent the surgical procedure known as endarterectomy.

Dr. Jean-Louis Mas, lead author, said that patients who have symptomatic stenosis benefit from endarterectomy, not stenting. He stressed that the study did not include patients at high risk of complications from surgery, such as those with severe heart disease.

The trial, which included 527 patients, found:

• 30-day incidence of stroke was 3.9% for patients who had surgery;
• 30-day incidence of stroke was 9% for patients who had stents;
• 6-month incidence of stroke/death was 6.1% for patients who had surgery;
• 6-month incidence of stroke/death was 11.7% for patients who had stents

A U.S. study — SAPPHIRE — found the opposite among diabetic patients.