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www.supersonicimagine.com • contacts@supersonicimagine.com The Innovative Ultrasound Company Angio PL.U.S. PLanewave UltraSensitive Imaging A New Solution for Microvascular Visualization ShearWave Elastography Changing the Management of Disease Across Multiple Clinical Applications UltraFast Doppler Breaking the Compromise Between Flow Imaging and Flow Quantification Single Crystal Technology Exceptional Image Quality Even in Technically Challenging Patients TM TM TM SUPERSONIC-PUB2 Aixplorer-12-2015-FLASH.indd 1 11/12/15 10:04 www.healthcare-in-europe.com 19RADIOLOGY & ULTRASOUND Aixplorer brings new capability for detecting tumour vessels without use of contrast SuperSonic reveals micro vessels with AngioPLUS Building on an innovative ultra- sound technology that continues to yield break-through capabilities, SuperSonic Imagine is introducing AngioPLUS, a third diagnostic func- tionality for its Aixplorer platform that promises to be instrumental in the diagnosis of cancerous tissues as well as musculoskeletal pathologies. Previewed in October, 2015 dur- ing the French Radiology Congress, AngioPLUS will begin shipping on the Aixplorer after its global launch at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). ‘This innovation is possible thanks to the UltraFast acquisition and plane wave imaging we applied first to ShearWave Elastography for the real-time assessment of lesions, and that we extended by introduc- ing UltraFast Doppler last year,’ said Jacques Souquet, Chief Innovation Officer of SuperSonic Imagine, and the company’s co-founder. AngioPLUS leverages the capabili- ties of UltraFast Doppler to provide a new level of microvascular imag- ing for vascular evaluation. Colour sensitivity and spatial resolution are significantly improved and when combined with exceptional 2D imaging, the result is an increased detail of real-time flow information available during ultrasound diagnos- tic exams. ‘We have improved sensitivity, compared to conventional Doppler, by a factor of 50 and this enables us to look at the microvasculature of lesions, the angiogenesis of tumour s, and potentially without the use of contrast agents,’ said Souquet. According to Souquet, one of the frustrations for clinicians is that with conventional Doppler they can see the beginning of the slower flow that indicates micro vessels, but they are unable to extract the image. ‘It is something that they simply can not see without enhancing the ultrasound signal using a contrast injection, and what AngioPLUS can do is to enhance that signal without contrast,’ he said. Currently the only technique for seeing micro vessels is to illuminate them with an injection of micro air bubbles into the bloodstream. AngioPLUS may reduce the need for interrupting exams of micro vessels in order to inject a contrast agent, Souquet said, and become instrumental in aiding the diagnosis of cancerous tissues in areas such as the breast, liver, lymph nodes and thyroid as well as musculoskeletal pathologies such as inflammation in tendons. ‘The advantage of our technol- ogy is the ability to use plane wave imaging on the Aixplorer. Using conventionally acquired Doppler would require a lot of filtering of their signal, looking at images sequentially, and trading off either frame rate or performance,’ Souquet pointed out. ‘Thanks to the UltraFast acquisi- tion, we don’t need to make this kind of compromise, and going even further, with our platform what we can do is provide a quantifica- tion of things like flow direction.’ According to Prof. Jean-Michel Correas, Vice Chairman of the Adult Radiology Department, at Necker University Hospital, Paris, ‘The AngioPLUS technology significantly improves flow sensitivity in colour imaging. This innovation also ena- bles attending physicians to quickly and accurately address challenging clinical situations, such as character- ising fortuitously discovered focal liver lesions and renal blood flow disturbance. ‘We believe AngioPLUS can help to avoid additional imaging or biop- sy procedures.’ With Aixplorer ultrasound, the firm launched a disruptive technol- ogy for ultrasound by swapping conventional line processors for a graphics processor used by video gaming firms to create lightning-fast sonic image acquisitions. ShearWave Elastography was the leading edge for the company to differentiate itself in the crowded ultrasound space. Progressively the company demonstrated in more than 60 peer-reviewed publications, including a multinational study of over 1,600 patients the benefits of using the ShearWave technology for the diagnosis of breast lesions. Results showed that ShearWave Elastography, combined with con- ventional ultrasound criteria, allowed superior accuracy in the diagnosis of breast lesions, signifi- cantly reduced the number of false positive cases and helped reduce the number of negative biopsies. More recently the company announced the enrollment of 2,270 patients for a milestone multi-centre study conducted in 22 locations across China to analyse the benefit of combining ShearWave evalua- tion of individual breast lesions to their classification using the Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) by the American College of Radiology. In addition to breast cancer man- agement clinical studies, over 60 liver disease-focused publications have demonstrated the reliabil- ity and effectiveness of ShearWave Elastography to assess the severity of chronic liver disease. In April 2015, results of a 1,340 patient study confirmed the accu- racy of ShearWave as a non-invasive alternative to a biopsy for staging liver fibrosis. ontlineclusive findings,’ Dromain told radi- ology colleagues at the Paris con- ference. ‘What becomes interesting here is that the angiomammo exam is performed by the same radiologist without needing to schedule a later exam and without any delay.’ Working at the Institute Gustave Roussy. in Paris, in close collab- oration with a research team at the Charité Hospital in Berlin, a study of 160 patients showed angio- mammography had the best agree- ment among radiologists reading the results, which Dromain said was slightly better than inter-reader agreement with MRI and clearly bet- ter than for mammography. It also demonstrates the ease of interpret- ing the images from angiomammo. Citing an Australian study, she said that patients globally preferred in a significant manner the experience of an angiomammo exam to one using an MRI scanner. A woman does not need to lie on her stomach and pass through an MRI machine, there is the absence of the noise, and a lot less patient anxiety. Although a higher radiation expo- sure is needed for angiomammo, it remains significantly below levels set for screening by both American and European authorities, she said. In her conclusion, Dromain stated that the diagnostic performance of angiomammo is very close to MRI in detecting lesions, with a sensitivity that is slightly lower and a specificity that is slightly superior to MRI, ‘such that the diagnostic performance is identical’. There is not yet any study on the economics and cost-effec- tiveness of applying angiomammo on the frontlines of breast cancer screening, she said, and there is not a specific reimbursement, which will remain a barrier to its wider imple- mentation in the clinic. Jacques Souquet, Chief Innovation Officer of SuperSonic Imagine, and the company’s co-founder SUPERSONIC-PUB2 Aixplorer-12-2015-FLASH.indd 111/12/1510:04

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