WAUKESHA, WISC, - GE Healthcare, a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE), has received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for its new mammography platform that will improve the standard of care for millions of women around the world. The Senographe© Essential is the next-generation of GE's proven Senographe Full Field Digital Mammography systems.

The new Senographe Essential will enhance the way clinicians can evaluate women for breast cancer, by enhancing image quality. With a 24 x 31 cm detector size, the Senographe Essential offers the largest active field of view in the industry. The foundation of the Senographe Essential imaging excellence is GE's advanced digital detector, which at low doses delivers the industry's highest Detective Quantum Efficiency (DQE) - the new standard for quantifying digital X-ray image quality.

"GE is the choice of today and the partner of tomorrow for breakthrough advancements in breast imaging," said Folke Lindberg, general manager of Global Mammography, GE Healthcare. "We are changing the way we fight breast cancer with digital mammography, by designing the Senographe Essential to meet all the clinical needs of screening and diagnostic procedures on one system to optimize workflow."
Digital Mammography Study
In the largest cancer screening trial in history, published in September by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the American College of Radiology Imaging Network (ACRIN), GE's Senographe digital mammography system was used for more exams than any other digital system (44%). The study reported that while film and digital images are equally accurate for many women, digital mammograms had higher sensitivities for three sub-groups of women: women under 50, women with heterogeneous or very dense breast tissue, and pre- or perimenopausal women.

"Just as consumers have moved from traditional film cameras to digital cameras, the medical community is rapidly adopting digital mammography tools that enable high quality, more accessible images," said Jennifer Conner, director of Breast Imaging, GE Healthcare. "Film is still a good technology, just as it is in cameras, but we think digital has advantages, particularly in its efficiency. We will continue to invest in research and development to improve mammography technology," said Conner.

In 2000, GE was the first company to introduce full-field digital mammography for patient use, and today there are more than 1,500 GE Senographe systems in use worldwide. More than 25 million women have been examined using GE Senographe FFDM systems. GE Healthcare spent 15 years and more than $200 million developing the Senographe systems' Revolution digital flat panel technology. As a result, GE holds more than 160 U.S. patents for its exclusive digital flat panel X-ray technology.

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