WAUKESHA, WISC., NOVEMBER 3, 2005 - GE Healthcare has announced clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the company's new series of computed tomography (CT) systems that now include much of the advanced technology available on the company's volume CT system, the LightSpeed VCT, in a smaller package. This new series of performance scanners, called BrightSpeed, provides the same exceptional image quality and productivity capabilities of the LightSpeed systems, but on the new BrightSpeed 4-, 8- and 16-slice CT systems.

The BrightSpeed scanners can be installed in a similar footprint to a single-slice CT system, offering clinicians sophisticated CT performance without the need to renovate or enlarge existing radiology departments.

"GE's new BrightSpeed series features all of the imaging and productivity capabilities physicians love about the LightSpeed, but in a smaller footprint," said Gene Saragnese, vice president and general manager of the company's global Molecular Imaging and CT business. "GE Healthcare has re-imagined multi-detector CT capabilities by developing our BrightSpeed series, which will be attractive to a broader audience of healthcare facilities, including community hospitals and outpatient imaging centers that may have space constraints."
The new BrightSpeed scanners, which include exclusive Volara digital Data Acquisition System (DAS) and the Xtream FX workflow platform, will be introduced at the 91st annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America in Chicago at the end of this month.

"By bringing the innovations of our LightSpeed VCT to the new BrightSpeed family, we are giving more clinicians access to enhanced image quality and, in turn, helping them to provide better patient care," said Saragnese.

According to Saragnese, the BrightSpeed series sets a high standard with better
image quality for high-resolution, optimal-dose imaging. The BrightSpeed series also offers productivity tools to facilitate review and communication, such as direct volume visualization with direct multi planar reformat (MPR).

Included in the BrightSpeed series is the Wide Open Workflow with Xtream FX. Xtream FX is the second generation of GE's Xtream workflow technology, providing imaging departments the ability to keep pace with the large volume of data generated by MDCT systems. A tool such as Direct Multi-Planar Reformat (DMPR) helps customers to improve interpretation efficiency, and provides views that may be more familiar to referring physicians and surgeons. Xtream FX adds more "effects" to GE's scalable Xtream reconstruction engine, which revolutionized workflow design with increased speed, image quality, and workflow flexibility.

BrightSpeed will be commercially available in early 2006.

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