Press Releases

7/24/2003

For Immediate Release

HITACHI ENHANCES MID-FIELD OPEN MR PERFORMANCE WITH ASCENT 4.5 SOFTWARE FOR AIRIS II OPEN MR

CONTACT:
Phil Chang
Hitachi Medical Systems America
1959 Summit Commerce Park
Twinsburg, Ohio 44087
(800) 800-3106
changp@hitachimed.com
www.hitachimed.com

Hitachi, the leader in Open MR innovation, has established yet another benchmark for value and performance in Mid-field Open MR technology, with the Ascent™ 4.5 MR Software Platform for their AIRIS® II Premium Performance Mid-field Open MR system.

Ascent 4.5 includes a host of new pulse sequences, post-processing tools and user interface features, and provides AIRIS II customers with a platform that delivers advanced clinical capabilities such as:

• Balanced SARGE™ and Driven Equilibrium FSE/FIR sequences offering enhanced neuro and ortho clinical capabilities.

• Faster scan planning through multi-plane/multi-scan acquisition, reducing patient study time.

• Radial and Free Curve Multi-Planar Reconstruction for increased reformatting flexibility, enabling users to demonstrate more detailed diagnostic information.

• Automated image position correction for easy creation of high quality subtracted/added image data sets.

• Sentinel™ Remote Customer Support enabling immediate review and diagnostic analysis of system performance by Hitachi’s Clinical Application and Service Specialists.

• Inversion Recovery EPI-DWI capability with fat suppression for high quality diffusion-weighted images at 0.3T.

• Diffusion Analysis tools including ADC maps and isotropic diffusion weighted images.

• DICOM enhancements featuring Modality Worklist, allowing heightened interoperability with PACS and HIS/RIS systems.

Ascent 4.5 is offered at no charge to customers enrolled in Hitachi’s industry-leading Ultra Plus Customer Assurance Program, including new AIRIS II customers. Ascent 4.5 delivers performance enhancements that provide AIRIS II the ability to satisfy the increased demands of Open MR, including superb image quality, unmatched patient comfort and continued return on investment.

Hitachi will conduct regional workshops on the Ascent 4.5 Software. These workshops are designed to be convenient and facilitate rapid training of all AIRIS II customers. The extensive program provides Continuing Education (CE) credits for all technologists completing the workshop.

It’s all in keeping with a commitment to customer solutions that has made Hitachi a world leader in medical imaging. Hitachi Medical Systems America, Inc. markets premium, high performance magnetic resonance imaging products of Hitachi Medical Corporation, Tokyo, Japan. These include the Altaire™ High-field Performance Open MR system and the AIRIS® II Premium Performance Open MR system. HMSA also markets Hitachi Ultrasound, and PET imaging systems. Hitachi has established a leadership position in diagnostic imaging with more than 1,300 Open MR imaging systems installed throughout the United States and over 2,400 worldwide.