GE Healthcare Acquires CZT Detector Company

November 15, 2010 — With regard to its molecular imaging business, GE Healthcare announced an agreement to acquire the assets of OMS, a subsidiary of Orbotech, a publicly held company based in Yavne, Israel. OMS manufactures cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) detector technology, a key component of GE Healthcare’s Alcyone nuclear medicine platform.

GE Healthcare has utilized this technology on its Discovery NM 530c and Discovery NM/CT 570c cardiac single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) machines. Alcyone offers the next generation in nuclear medicine, reducing dose while simultaneously improving image quality and scan times.

Unlike other nuclear imaging products, all views are acquired simultaneously during a fully stationary SPECT acquisition, eliminating equipment movement during the scan and reducing the risk of motion artifacts. CZT detectors directly convert gamma rays into digital signals, eliminating the need for crystals and photomultiplier tubes. With this technology, an acquisition time can be reduced significantly from 15 minutes to three minutes, or patient dose may be reduced significantly. It also enables new applications like dynamic acquisition to measure blood flow or acquire multiple isotopes simultaneously to improve quality of diagnosis.

For more information: www.gehealthcare.com