Carestream Health, Inc., demonstrated advanced features for its picture archiving and communications system (PACS) at the 9th European Society of Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ESTRO) bi-annual meeting this week. These include a new image fusion application for PET/CT imaging and enhancements to native real-time 3D capabilities.

Also on show is the Kodak2000RT CR Plus System and KodakRadiation Oncology Beam Dosimetry Package to provide flexibility and precision when conducting portal and simulation imaging, as well as essential dosimetric and physics QA tests.

The latest PACS workstation featured the innovative Carestream information management platform, that enables oncology treatment centres to store and manage patient information, treatment plans and images captured by a variety of different systems - all from a central database. Key features on show include:

• Image Fusion software that delivers enhanced visualisation of cancerous tumours and lesions. This software automatically overlays and registers image data from PET/CT systems, allowing oncologists better visualisation of anatomic and metabolic information to more confidently assess tumour volumes and disease progression.
  
• Native real-time 2D and 3D capabilities including MIP (maximum intensity projection), MinIP (minimum intensity projection), MPR (multiplanar reconstruction), volume rendering, tissue definition and vessel tracking functionality from a single virtual desktop.

CR system for radiation oncology

The 2000RT CR Plus is a computed radiography system designed specifically for radiation oncology professionals. The system supports multiple treatment rooms and multiple linear accelerators and simulation devices, regardless of manufacturer or age. It can be networked to virtually all planning softwares, QC image analysis tools and oncology information systems, as well as linked to the wider hospital PACS to enable images to be reviewed on workstations beyond the radiation oncology department. A work list function can be integrated to the hospital HIS/RIS to enable improved workflow and increased productivity. For standalone cancer centres, KodakRadiation Oncology Software provides features optimised specifically for the radiation oncology workflow, such as importing DRRs for side-by-side viewing, DICOM RT or DICOM 3.0 output, and the ability to view and approve images on any networked PC.

Addition of the KodakRadiation Oncology Beam Dosimetry Package allows physicists to perform a wide range of machine beam and IMRT QA imaging - along with the CR platform's existing ability to capture portal localisation, verification and simulation image required for radiation therapy patients. This powerful combination enables facilities to finally remove their film processor and be completely filmless.