E REVIEW CR BY GREG FREIHERR Radiology firms reinvent
themselves on ECR exhibit floor As companies adapt to changing market conditions such as tight economic conditions and stagnation in the Western world but expansion in the developing countries, their product offerings are slowly changing too.
The signs of those changes dotted the ECR exhibit floor in Vienna earlier this year, just as they were to a lesser extent in evidence at the RSNA meeting several months ago.
W
hen an industry is going full steam, as the imaging industry was just a few years ago, the sheer momentum of continu- ing revenues and mounting profits argue
against a change in course. But, when the wake created by a financial meltdown of the magnitude seen in 2008 threatens to swamp even the biggest ship, a new course is easier to lay in. Today some of the supertankers of imaging are chart-
ing new courses, just as smaller, niftier competitors are well into their turns. Together they comprise a re-align- ment of extraordinary proportions, one that is reshaping the medical imaging industry in Europe and around the world, as it changes the trajectory of imaging practice. Driven by new economics, Siemens Healthcare
unveiled a new “business class” of technology. The new strategy took shape initially in December as the Somatom Perspective, a CT scanner engineered for effi- ciency. Under the banner of a new “eMode functionality” that automatically adjusts scans, Somatom Perspective strikes an optimal balance of patient radiation dose, efficiency, and image quality, according to the company. This strategy assumed a new dimension at the ECR with
the unveiling of Siemens’ Magnetom Spectra, a low-cost 3T MR scanner. Positioned on the ECR exhibit floor as “The key to 3T”, Spectra unlocks unlimited usability and uncom- promised patient care through quality akin to a premium performance scanner, said company executives. “The key points are quality and usability,” said Chris-
tiane Bernhardt, Siemens director of Outbound Mar- keting for MR, emphasizing that providing access to premium patient care is Siemens’ priority. Indisputably, however, what distinguishes the system is its price. To get the price down, Siemens had to sacrifice the wide bore found on its premium systems. The Spectra
Greg Freiherr is head of the US-based firm, the Freiherr group, which specializes in corporate consulting and editorial services for the medical imaging industry. email:
greg.freiherr@
gmail.com
APRIL/MAY 2012
Siemens’ new Spectra demonstrates high quality 3T brain imaging despite the cut rate price of the scanner. Image courtesy Siemens
DI EUROPE 35
measures 60cm in diameter, 10 cm less than flagship 3T products. The narrower bore allows the use of less expensive gradient coils and makes Spectra’s a compact design less costly to manufacture. Siemens did not skimp, however, on the technolo-
gies that make for high-end performance. The Spec- tra supports Tim 4G, Siemens’ fourth generation total imaging matrix, and Dot (day optimizing throughput) technologies. Scheduled to begin shipping in the second half of this
year, pending regulatory clearances, Spectra will com- mand about the same street price as 1.5T scanners did five years ago. In doing so, this scanner – and the others that are sure to follow – may pave the way to making 3T the clinical benchmark that the industry has been predicting for the past decade.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56