BEDFORD, Mass. (June 5, 2006) - Hologic, Inc. (NASDAQ: HOLX), today announced they have reached a strategic research agreement with Professor Klaus Engelke, Ph.D. Head of the Osteoporosis Research Center of the Institute of Medical Physics, University of Erlangen-Nrnberg in Germany. Under the terms of this agreement, Prof. Engelke will provide CT datasets with segmented femurs for use in the development of volumetric reference data on the Hologic QDR Discovery system.
Clinicians have long sought the next generation of osteoporosis assessment tools to better predict femur fracture risk, commented Brad Herrington, Hologic Vice President of Skeletal Health Imaging. We believe that the research of Professor Engelke and his colleague Willi A. Kalender will help bring us closer to the commercialization of a low-dose tomographic assessment of bone density and geometry to discern bone structure and strength.
Hologic has realized the importance of 3-D femur analysis to the measurement of bone strength, said Professor Engelke. Clinical and research applications with CT so far have been limited by the high radiation dose necessary and the difficulty in accurate and reproducible segmentation of bone from soft tissue. While we have solved the 3D segmentation problem a lower dose method of determining the three dimensional structure of the femur would have a definite attraction to the researcher and clinician alike.
Our hope is that tomographic 3-D analysis will ultimately be available on all Discovery systems with rotational C-arm capability, Herrington noted. The exclusive rotating C-arm capability of Discovery affords maximized patient comfort and efficient workflow by allowing the patient to remain in a comfortable supine position for the entire range of bone density procedures including Instant Vertebral Assessment.
About Hologic
Hologic Inc. is a leading developer, manufacturer and supplier of premium diagnostic and medical imaging systems dedicated to serving the healthcare needs of women, and a leading developer of innovative imaging technology for digital radiography and breast imaging. Hologic's core business units are focused on osteoporosis assessment, mammography and breast biopsy, and mini C-arm and extremity MRI imaging for orthopedic applications.
About Professor Klaus Engelke
Klaus Engelke was born in Hanover, Germany and studied physics at the University of Hamburg, Germany. During his Ph.D. studies at the Hamburger Synchrotron Radiation Lab (Hasylab) at the German Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) he pioneered CT and finished his Ph.D. thesis CT with synchrotron radiation to quantitatively determine bone mineral in 1989. He continued his work when he joined the Osteoporosis Research Group (ORG) at the University of California at San Francisco. Since 1995 he has been head of the Osteoporosis Research Center at the Institute of Medical Physics, University of Erlangen-Nrnberg where he continued his research in osteoporosis, CT and advanced image processing. Currently he concentrates on research and development of QCT acquisition protocols and images analysis tools for musculoskeletal applications. In 2004 he joined Synarc, Inc, San Francisco to direct the use of advanced QCT imaging techniques in clinical trials in osteoporosis.
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