The company released another important C-arm in February of this year-the Ziehm Solo.

"This is a compact, small footprint, one-piece design in which a 24" flat panel, split-screen display is attached to the C-arm chassis on an articulating arm, thereby eliminating the need for a separate monitor cart workstation," says Dan Edwards, VP of the Orlando, Fla.-based company.


Because of the well-publicized consent decree with the FDA that GE Healthcare and its OEC surgery business agreed to in 2007, they are unable to offer flat panel C-arm technology until 2011.

Elizabeth Usher, chief marketing officer for GE Healthcare Surgery, thinks there is a buzz over all this, but that it may not be as perfect as some believe.

"We do see a lot of interest in flat panel detectors. We think there is a general perception of a flat panel projector on a mobile C-arm that you get better image quality with that, but from our perspective, when you add a current flat panel detector on a mobile C-arm, you have to boost power and increase cooling, and our view is that today's flat panel detectors on a mobile C-arm, while they do produce nice images on small anatomy and less complex procedures, you don't see that translate across dense anatomy and more complex procedures."

Looking ahead a few years, Usher does believe that OEC will be looking at flat panel detectors in the future and will be able to bring that potential to all clinical and all patient types.

The main issue with the flat panel technology on C-arms today is that the cost is very high, and while it's a highly desired option, the economics don't make sense to everyone.

"As the price of flat panel technology goes down, those C-arms will become more mainstream," says Jeff Weiss, president of Atlantis Worldwide LLC. "Right now, flat panel detector C-arms are selling for $250,000 and high-end hospitals are going to buy that and we've seen that. Private imaging centers or smaller hospitals maybe will not spend that kind of money, but when it comes down to the mid-$100,000 range, we will see a whole turnover in technology."

But that switch is already happening according to some, who have witnessed prices starting to drop in the first quarter of 2010.

"There are a few companies that are streamlining their flat panel detectors and working out the kinks and reducing the costs for them to be practical enough to displace the tried-and-true image intensifier," says Leon Gugel, president of Long Island City, N.Y.-based Metropolis International.

Mini C-arms

According to Richard Keil, national sales manager for Hologic, Inc., the company still has the lion's share of the market for the mini C-arm.

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