Frost & Sullivan Lauds Philips Healthcare's Introduction of Vereos, the First Digital PET/CT Solution

-- Vereos PET/CT is an improvement over PET imaging in quantification accuracy and reproducibility, as well as in procedure workflow efficiency

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California, Nov. 26, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Based on its recent analysis of the positron emission tomography (PET) imaging industry, Frost & Sullivan recognizes Philips Healthcare with the 2014 North America Frost & Sullivan Award for Technology Innovation Leadership. Philips Healthcare launched the industry's first digital PET/computed tomography (CT) system when it introduced the Vereos PET/CT system. Vereos's all-digital imaging chain was redesigned from the ground-up, forming a new digital system that aids the next level of performance in PET imaging.

At the core of the Vereos system are novel silicon photomultiplier detectors, which overcome the limitations of avalanche photodiodes (heating and vibrations) to provide a definitive replacement option for traditional analog detectors. This breakthrough innovation is set to enable providers to breach the next frontier in the clinical utility of PET imaging.

Expectedly, digital PET imaging is already experiencing early adoption in academic and research centers. Digital PET imaging's value proposition of better workflow, performance and reliability is increasingly appealing to facilities looking to scale up their competitive positioning in diagnostic imaging in general and in specialty areas in particular.

Frost & Sullivan believes that while the time-of-flight (TOF) technology facilitated significant enhancements to oncology PET imaging, it made only marginal improvements to cardiology and neurology PET imaging, which are expected to be dynamic growth segments for PET imaging in the next few years, with clinical advances and new radiopharmaceuticals to augment adoption and procedure volume in these two areas.

"Through a combination of hardware and software advances, the Vereos PET/CT offers superior sensitivity and volumetric resolution, which can potentially translate to much richer image quality, performance, reliability and diagnostic confidence in PET imaging," said Frost & Sullivan Principal Analyst Nadim Michel Daher.

With the rise of value-based healthcare and imaging, the patient outcomes generated by advanced and expensive imaging procedures are being all the more scrutinized by health systems and payers. Therefore, it is important for imaging providers vested in molecular imaging to demonstrate PET imaging's effectiveness in deriving definitive diagnoses and treatment plans.