• Ascent Healthcare Solutions (Phoenix), formerly Alliance Medical and Vanguard Medical Concepts, reported receiving FDA 510(k) clearance to reprocess the TORQR CS Series EP catheters manufactured by Medtronic. Reprocessing diagnostic EP catheters — specially designed electrode instruments that transmit electrical impulses — reduces the cost of an EP study by $300 to $50), Ascent said. A hospital that performs 1,000 or more studies each year could save between $250,000 and $1 million annually, according to Ascent.

• Canon USA (Lake Success, New York) reported the availability of the Canon CXDI-40EC DR, a digital radiography (DR) system that offers fast, filmless X-ray capture and improves workflow efficiency for diverse radiographic applications, according to Canon. The Canon CXDI-40EC DR, which features the LANMIT 8 (Large Area New-MIS Sensor and TFT), is equipped with a 17 X 17 inch imaging area, and a Canon Amorphous Silicon (a-Si) Flat Panel Detector and Cesium Iodide (CsI) scintillator. The highly sensitive detector contains approximately 7.2 million.

• Cardiac Science (Bothell, Washington) reported the availability of HeartCentrix, a software solution that enables diagnostic stress, Holter, and electrocardiography devices to communicate with electronic medical record (EMR) systems. HeartCentrix software is launched from within the EMR, allowing the physician to order a test from within the patient's chart, according to the company. Once the device performs the test, the physicians can review, edit, and store the results within the EMR. HeartCentrix also allows physicians to remotely review and confirm test results outside the office, wherever they have Internet access to their EMR. Cardiac Science makes advanced cardiac monitoring and external defibrillation products.

• VirtualScopics (Rochester, New York) reported that it has been issued Patent No. 7,103,224, "System and Method for Identifying Optimized Blood Signal in Medical Images to Eliminate Flow Artifacts" by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The patent applies to research in anti-angiogenic and anti-vascular agents. For example, in oncology those drugs are designed to cut off a tumor's blood supply, starving it of nutrients and eventually killing it. Tests to show a drug is working can be done non-invasively using dynamic contrast enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI). This patent covers an innovation in DCE-MRI analysis involving the measurement of tracer concentration in arterial plasma — a difficult task because arterial plasma is in continuous motion, and motion can corrupt the MRI signal, said VirtualScopics. VirtualScopics provides imaging solutions to accelerate drug and medical device development.