GE Healthcare Introduces New Cardiovascular Ultrasound Device

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the Vivid T8 cardiovascular ultrasound device from GE Healthcare. The 129-pound, mobile system features innovative quantitative features, stress echo and TEE capabilities, according to the company. GE has enhanced the reach of the Vivid T8 by combining the established cardiac imaging capabilities of GE Vivid systems with the shared services performance of the company’s LOGIQ systems.

“Performance, complete echocardiography features, shared services and reliability were the key priorities in developing the Vivid T8,” said Al Lojewski, general manager of Cardiovascular Ultrasound for GE Healthcare. “In developing the system, we put it through more than 20 hours of intense vibration, shock and thermal testing to ensure its reliability in the settings outlined by our customers. The result is a value system unlike any other we’ve commercialized at GE. With the growing global crisis of cardiovascular disease, we wanted to develop an affordable, reliable solution that could potentially allow clinicians around the world increased access to high performance ultrasound.”

Designed and rigorously tested for high reliability, the Vivid T8 is a mobile system intended for use in a variety of traditional as well as harsh, demanding environments. It delivers a hardy robustness that stands up to the challenges of even the busiest ultrasound imaging practices and clinical settings, GE Healthcare bigwigs claim.

Designed to be easy to use yet clinically versatile, the T8 features an intuitive user interface with touch-screen capabilities, rotary dials and patient management buttons with the look and feel of a true Vivid console. Additionally, it provides access to up to four transducer ports allowing increased, easier access to more clinical procedures.

The Vivid T8 system allows healthcare providers access to advanced quantitative tools and delivers exceptional shared service image quality, with options to customize the system to fit each healthcare provider’s needs. Key clinical applications include:

• Tissue Velocity Imaging – captures dynamic information from moving heart tissue to quantify left ventricular function.
• AutoEF- automatically assesses left ventricular ejection fraction using an automated, speckle-tracking ROI tool.
• SmartStress- automatically adjusts settings to help enhance workflow, reproducibility, and diagnostic confidence.
• Automated Function Imaging – assesses and quantifies left ventricular wall motion at rest, and calculates parameters to describe left ventricular wall function.
• Auto IMT – provides automatic edge detection for intima-media thickness and auto-completes required measurements.
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• Adult multiplane transesophageal echo transducers areavailablefor specific echo examinations
• Monitoring and guidance to support interventional procedures
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• Virtual Convex – extends the field of view when using linear transducers.
• LOGIQ View – increases the field of view to image large organs that typically can’t be seen in a single image.
• B-Flow – provides advanced spatial and temporal resolution to help assess blood flow and vessel wall structure without the limitations of Doppler.
• Blood Flow Imaging – helps enhance visualization of blood flow dynamics using a unique signal-processing algorithm.