TORONTO, Ontario, Nov. 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Cedara Software, a Merge Healthcare company and a leading independent developer of medical software technologies for the global healthcare market, today announced the general market release of Cedara B-CAD 1.0, an innovative new solution designed to assist in the analysis and reporting of breast ultrasound.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20030430/MRGELOGO )
“From demands for cost effective diagnostic procedures to needs for more consistent reporting practices and higher patient throughput, a number of challenges are faced in breast imaging today,” stated Sabrina Cannistraro, Product Manager for Women’s Health at Cedara Software. “Cedara B-CAD represents a strong shift for breast ultrasound image analysis and CAD applications in general and will break down the barriers to providing efficient clinical solutions for better patient care. Considering early feedback on the application, I think that Cedara B-CAD will have a strong impact on breast imaging.”
Representing over 5 years of development, Cedara B-CAD is the world’s first commercially available CAD solution designed to assist radiologists in the analysis of breast lesions using ultrasound images. Uniquely positioned to reduce the quantity of time required by a radiologist to analyze and report the findings of breast ultrasound images, Cedara B-CAD provides tools for automatic image analysis, segmentation, and classification. To address hospital wide needs for consistent reporting practices, Cedara B-CAD provides a standardized reporting structure defined by the ACR BI-RADS(R) Ultrasound Lexicon Classification Form.
Prior to general market release, Cedara B-CAD has been in use at several luminary sites across North America, including Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Sally Jobe Breast Center in Greenwood Village, Colorado and Weinstein Imaging Associates in Pittsburgh.
“Cedara B-CAD is one of the most innovative applications for breast ultrasound on the market,” said Dr. Ellen Mendelson of Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. “At our institution, Cedara B-CAD will be an excellent teaching tool for newcomers to breast ultrasound. For trained radiologists, it will also have a positive impact on spreading acceptance of the ACR BI-RADS(R) lexicon for breast ultrasound and assisting in the classification of breast lesions.”
Part of Cedara’s suite of solutions for breast imaging, Cedara B-CAD is available to OEM organizations interested in expanding their capabilities in breast imaging.
“CAD is increasingly becoming a standard of care in breast imaging,” continued Cannistraro. “While CAD solutions for Mammography and MRI have gained a strong foothold in clinical environments, ultrasound marks a large, as-of-yet unexplored market. From a business perspective, Cedara B-CAD provides a strong value-add for imaging companies interested in broadening their revenue stream and competitive capabilities.”
B-CAD was developed by Cedara Software and the Medipattern Corporation through Cedara’s Technology Partnership Program. B-CAD was US FDA 510(k) cleared in May 2005.
Cedara is a Merge Healthcare company focused on the development of custom engineered software applications and development tools for the medical imaging OEM and International markets. Cedara software is deployed in hospitals and clinics worldwide and is licensed by many of the world’s leading medical device and healthcare information technology companies. Cedara technologies and expertise span all the major digital imaging modalities including computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), digital X-ray, mammography, ultrasound, echo-cardiology, angiography, nuclear medicine, positron emission tomography (PET) and fluoroscopy. Cedara medical imaging offerings are used in all aspects of clinical imaging workflow including the capture of a patient’s digital image; the archiving, communication and manipulation of digital images; sophisticated clinical applications to analyze digital images; and the use of imaging in minimally-invasive surgery. For additional information, visit our website at http://www.cedara.com.
Merge Healthcare is a market leader in the development and delivery of medical imaging and information management software and services. With over twenty years of leadership in the medical imaging and healthcare information technology markets, Merge Healthcare provides innovative solutions for both OEM and the end-user healthcare markets. We custom engineer clinical and imaging applications and development tools that are on the forefront of medicine and its use of medical imaging for OEM and international customers. We develop innovative medical imaging software solutions that support end-to-end business and clinical workflow for radiology department and specialty practices, imaging centers and hospitals. Our innovative software solutions use leading-edge imaging software technologies that accelerate market delivery for our OEM customers, while our end-user solutions improve our customers’ productivity and enhance the quality of patient care they provide. For additional information, visit our website at http://www.merge.com.
All trademarks appearing in this release are the property of Cedara Software Corp.
Photo: NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20030430/MRGELOGOAP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.orgPRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.comMerge Healthcare
CONTACT: Jacques Cornet of Cedara Software Corp., VP of BusinessDevelopment & Marketing, +1-905-672-2100 ext 2564,jacques.cornet@cedara.com; Media Contact: Beth Frost-Johnson of MergeHealthcare, Sr. VP of Marketing, +1-414-977-4254, bethfj@merge.com