MUNICH, Germany — As part of the imaging revolution on display in the exhibit hall at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) congress here, Philips (Andover, Massachusetts) was showing the result of a Franco-America collaboration to update and enhance old-fashioned angiography.

ESC 2008 was the first showing for the XperSwing, featuring a dual-axis C-arm that operates on two axes simultaneously, creating a 3-D arc around the patient, or "swinging," as the marketing engineers prefer.

This flexibility in movement enables coronary image acquisition in fewer runs in contrast to the non-swingers that move either from side-to-side or up-and-down but not in both directions simultaneously.

Non-swingers are a bit stiff, as well. The C-arms on conventional angiography units need to be positioned before each image, not unlike framing a photograph before snapping the shutter, such that obtaining the required images take a higher number of static snapshots.

The benefit to patients of this enhanced technology, which is fully automated, is reduced exposure to X-rays and reduced contrast medium dosages, according to an initial study evaluating 26 patients randomized to either XperSwing or conventional non-rotational angiography.

XperSwing patients required 18% less contrast agent dosage and were exposed to half the radiation dose, though for all the automation and swinging there was no significant difference in procedure time between the two approaches.

Philips developed XperSwing in collaboration with John Carroll, MD, head of cardiology at the University of Colorado, Denver, and Philippe Guyon, MD, an interventional cardiologist at the Centre Cardiologique du Nord in France.

XperSwing is scheduled for release in spring 2009.

GE Healthcare (Waukesha, Wisconsin) demonstrated the Vivid e9 ultrasound system that it said is the first system designed by GE from the ground up specifically for 4-D imaging that acquires a full view of the heart, literally in a heartbeat.

Using what it terms "accelerated volume architecture" (AVA) that falls shy of full-volume acquisition, GE says the image processing is ungated and unspliced.

The re-engineered matrix array transducer combined with a single crystal design also produces greatly enhanced 2-D echography images.

Omar Ishrak, CEO of clinical systems, said, "We expect the e9 to revolutionize the field of echo by making 4-D imaging easy, providing not only 4-D images of the heart but also providing new user tools like Easy 4-D and Scanassist one-touch controls to assist the user by streamlining the 4-D exam."