From the March 2015 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine

“We still see the adoption of flat detectors growing,” Heijnen says. “We still believe that the future is in that technology, especially for the more complicated procedures where image quality is important.”

The next dimension
Another emerging technology is 3-D imaging, but emerging is the key word. Ziehm Imaging expects FDA approval this spring for its RFD 3-D mobile C-arm, targeted to orthopedic, trauma, and spinal surgeons, who would use the intraoperative 3-D scan to check whether their surgical goal was achieved. Martin Herzmann, Ziehm’s director of global marketing, says 3-D C-arms, which combine 2-D and 3-D on one platform, instead of being solely a 3-D system, don’t require staff to learn a new workflow. Herzmann likens it to a smartphone that can be used to make calls along with writing emails and using a Web browser.


“You would not only make phone calls with your tablet, but use it for more than only one application” Herzmann says. Ziehm’s main competitor in the 3-D space is Siemens and its Arcadis Orbic 3-D. Herzmann believes that the geometry and hardware components for that product are dedicated to 3-D and rarely used for 2-D imaging. The company also holds a patent on a technology called SmartScan that uses a combination of two linear movements with one orbital rotation, offering 180-degree image information on any anatomical structure. “This specific movement allows us to have a really small geometry,” Herzmann says.

In 2007, Ziehm was the first company to provide fully digital C-arms. “We have the advantage of eight years of experience,” Herzmann says.

GE still flat on FPDs
GE OEC is the only C-arm manufacturer that hasn’t come out with an amorphous silicon flat panel system despite having applied for a 510(k) for such a device more than 10 years ago.

“Amorphous silicon-based flat panels are designed to work on very high-end systems” that operate on remote power not achievable on any manufacturers’ mobile C-arms using power available in the OR, says Chad Kendell, vice president of surgery sales in the Americas for OEC. With flat panel detectors on mobile C-arms “your image quality suffers unless you increase dose as the
DQE [detective quantum efficiency] in which such systems operate is lower than an II [image intensifier] in imaging situations such as larger patients or difficult clinical shots such as through the hips or across the shoulders.”

“We felt like given the market conditions out there, that higher dose and higher costs were not the right thing for our customers,” Kendell says.

March 2015 Magazine

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