First Portable Echocardiography System Offers Real Time 3D Transesophageal Echo

A new portable transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) system enables three-dimensional (3D) visualization of cardiac structures and function as well as new outlooks of the heart in real time, thus enabling better patient care.

At the 23rd annual scientific sessions of the American Society of Echocardiography (ASE), held June 2012 in National Harbor (MD, USA), Philips Healthcare (Best, The Netherlands) presented the new CX50 xMatrix, the world’s first portable ultrasound to offer Philips’ Time 3D transesophageal Echo (TEE) Live 3D echocardiography system. Previously only available with Philips iE33 xMatrix echocardiography solution, Live 3D TEE enables 3D visualization of the cardiac structure and function as well as new perspectives of the heart in real time, enabling better patient care.

Since its launch in 2008, Philips CX50 CompactXtreme ultrasound system has been providing the flexibility of a portable system, while providing excellent ultrasound imaging performance. With Live 3D TEE now available on the CX50 xMatrix, interventional teams can more easily access important clinical information and visualizations for complex interventional procedures. For clinical efficiency, the compact Live 3D TEE transducer is developed to be shared between the CX50 and iE33 xMatrix systems. Because of this, departments should be able to decrease the number of TEE transducers that must be bought, tracked, cleaned, and stored.

“The first thing the staff noticed was the incredibly small size of the CX50 system, which is very useful in our cath lab where space is at a premium,” said Dr. David Liang, MD, PhD, associate professor of medicine and director, Marfan syndrome and aortic disorders at Stanford University (CA, USA). “In clinical evaluations the live 3D TEE image quality is excellent and, with the new user interface, 3D imaging is really intuitive. In imaging TAVR [transcatheter aortic valve replacement] procedures with the CX50, I am able to easily switch back and forth between 2D and 3D during the critical time when we are positioning the valve.”

The CX50 xMatrix is a powerful all-in-one imaging solution for structural heart disease (SHD) repairs in cath labs and hybrid cardiac operating rooms, providing Live 3D TEE plus an architecture designed to support future capabilities including sophisticated fluoro integration (EchoNavigator, 510(k) pending) with Philips Allura systems.

Along with the new CX50 xMatrix, Philips announced the Vision 2013 upgrade for existing CX50 cardiology customers. Vision 2013 includes Qlab 9.0 with improved speckle-tracking algorithm for faster, more robust strain quantification; available C8-5 and L12-5 50-mm transducers for specialized vascular imaging requirements; available S12-4 and S8-3 sector transducers for pediatric and neonatal imaging; new pediatric analysis and structured reporting capabilities; vascular structured reporting; and improved annotations and workflow.

“We reengineered the CX50 in order to continue to push the envelope. The CX50 xMatrix demonstrates our continued commitment to cardiology leadership and to delivering the most clinically relevant echocardiography solutions,” said Conrad Smits, CEO ultrasound, for Philips Healthcare. “The new CX50 xMatrix is a versatile system that provides hospitals with high quality portable imaging to promote better patient care.”

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