Alliance Supports Research for Software-Enhanced Cardiac-Imaging Collaboration

A comprehensive software package has been designed to significantly improve the quality and accessibility of nuclear cardiology images.

The software has been licensed by Emory University (Atlanta, GA, USA) to Syntermed (Atlanta, GA, USA), a nuclear medicine imaging and informatics software company. The software, called the Emory Reconstruction Toolbox (ERTb), was developed by Emory medical scientists Ernest Garcia, Ph.D., and Ji Chen, Ph.D., and their colleagues.

ERTb performs image reconstruction and synthesis, quality control, and correction for patient and physical phenomena to provide high-quality myocardial perfusion single photon emission computerized tomography (SPECT) images for cardiovascular diagnosis.

SPECT is a non-invasive, three-dimensional, functional imaging technology that provides clinical information about biochemical and physiologic processes in patients. This is done by imaging and quantifying the distribution of radionuclides in the body that are used to label molecules, drugs, antibodies, neurotransmitters and other compounds. These tracers are used to detect biochemical and physiologic processes that may signal the early progression of coronary artery disease.

ERTb, which can be used on any standalone personal computer (PC), is designed to be the image generating "front end" for the widely used Emory Cardiac Toolbox, a vast set of software tools for evaluating cardiac images, developed by Garcia and his colleagues at Emory and elsewhere over the past 20 years. The Emory Cardiac Toolbox is used in almost half of the cardiac laboratories in the United States.

Syntermed will market ERTb as ReconTools, which was recently presented at the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ASNC) 2008 annual meeting in Boston, MA, USA, on September 10-14, 2008. Chen will present research related to new imaging technologies, including ERTb, at the meeting on September 13, 2008.

"SPECT studies are a critical part of diagnosis and prognosis of coronary artery disease,” commented Dr. Garcia, who is a professor of radiology at Emory University School of Medicine. "As software imaging technologies continue to improve, diagnosis becomes increasingly detailed and accurate. Among other things, the ERTb software was developed to automate the detection and correction of patient motion, reconstruct and synthesize images and correct subtle physical changes that can degrade accuracy in SPECT imaging.” Dr. Garcia is the scientific founder and chief scientific advisor of Syntermed. The company is co-owned in part by Emory and Georgia Tech.

The original Emory Cardiac Toolbox was the founding technology of Syntermed, established in 1999 as an Emory spin-off of research, technology, and existing licenses to the major medical imaging companies. Today the Toolbox has five other tools to support three-dimensional (3D) cardiac imaging of heart perfusion, including the recent U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cleared SyncTool, which is designed to more accurately select heart failure patients who would benefit from cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT).

Michael Lee, chairman and CEO of Syntermed, remarked, "Syntermed started in the simplest way possible, with the objective to commercialize technology that promotes innovation and creativity. Today, ours' is a success story founded on a strong portfolio of intellectual property licensed from Emory that continues to thrive.”

Syntermed is a nuclear medicine imaging and informatics software company that has transformed the nuclear imaging field by being the first to offer positron emission tomography (PET) and SPECT software programs untethered from imaging hardware. Its software powers more than 40% of the nuclear cardiology labs in the United States, and is compatible with any nuclear medicine workstation or PC/MAC that supports the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Related Links:
Emory University
Syntermed