TUSTIN, Calif., Nov. 7, 2005 - Toshiba America Medical Systems, Inc. (TAMS) has announced an agreement to provide Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center with the state-of-the-art Aplio CV ultrasound system for use in a groundbreaking clinical trial. The Aplio CV, Toshiba's all-digital ultrasound system for advanced cardiac applications, will enable clinicians in the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, Department of Non-invasive Cardiac Imaging, to conduct a high-volume of cardiovascular echocardiography procedures.

Under the terms of the agreement, the Aplio CV will be used for 30 months in a clinical study in conjunction with Toshiba's Aquilion 64 CFXTM, the world's only true volumetric 64-slice computerized tomography (CT) system. The clinical trial, entitled "The Combined Use of Tissue Doppler Echo and Cardiac Multi-Detector CT to Assess Outcome Following Resynchronization Therapy," commenced in October and involves approximately 50-100 patients. According to investigators, no other study has evaluated both ultrasound and CT.

The overall objective of the study is to utilize the combination of these modalities to optimize cardiac resynchronization, predict the adequacy of response to therapy and to study the effects of dyssynchrony.
The study aims to determine which echocardiography measurement or combination of measurements best predicts CT-determined reverse-remodeling in cardiac patients undergoing resynchronization therapy and exploring whether coronary venous anatomy predicts CT determined reverse-remodeling in cardiac patients undergoing resynchronization therapy.

"The combination of cardiac CT and Tissue-Doppler echocardiography has the potential to obtain almost all clinically important cardiac information needed to evaluate the patient, plan the implantation procedure and assess the outcome," said Gordon Parhar, director, Ultrasound Business Unit, TAMS. "The decision by Johns Hopkins, the No. 1 rated hospital in the country, to utilize not one, but two of our systems for this unique study, validates Toshiba's superior technology and excellent clinical support team."

About Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy
Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT), which is sometimes called biventricular pacing, is a form of therapy for congestive heart failure caused by dilated cardiomyopathy. CRT uses a specialized pacemaker to coordinate the action of the right and left ventricles in patients with heart failure. In approximately 30 percent of patients with heart failure, an abnormality in the heart's electrical conducting system (called an "intraventricular conduction delay" or bundle branch block) causes the two ventricles to beat in an asynchronous fashion. That is, instead of beating simultaneously, the two ventricles beat slightly out of phase. This asynchrony greatly reduces the efficiency of the ventricles in patients with heart failure.

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