A scant few months ago GE Healthcare ($GE) disclosed a partnership with deep learning medical imaging startup Arterys, just as the San Francisco-based company nabbed a $7 million Series A investment. Now, GE is preparing to launch the resulting cardiac MR analysis system ViosWorks that offers a deep learning analysis of 7-dimensional cardiac imaging data.
The Arterys System offers noninvasive visualization and quantification of cardiac blood flow for use in diagnosing cardiovascular anomalies and disease. Arterys applies deep learning and artificial intelligence to enable analysis of the data in a fraction of the time it typically takes just for conventional MRI scans. Arterys Systems are already installed at some research institutions.
"The commercial launch of the Arterys System with GE Healthcare's ViosWorks will open the door to harnessing the extensive amount of data gathered during an MR scan for thousands of patients each day," said Arterys founder and CEO Fabien Beckers in a statement. "As we receive patient data and confirmation of physician-guided diagnoses, the Arterys algorithm is designed to continuously learn and improve, moving further along the spectrum of deep learning, and allowing one physician to benefit from the inputs of thousands."
The 7 measured dimensions include three in space, three in direction and one in time. For each cardiac MRI performed, there are 30,000 images uploaded into a cloud-based platform for visualization and quantification. The Arterys proprietary algorithm is then applied to analyze the images, identify the flow of blood through the heart and compute otherwise time-consuming values to enable physician diagnosis.
"This novel ability to acquire, view, quantify and accurately assess cardiovascular disease from MR cardiovascular exams represents a significant step forward in MRI imaging," said CMO of Global MR at GE Healthcare Ioannis Panagiotelis in a statement. "We are excited to introduce this advancement for cardiac assessments with GE Healthcare MR systems."
Added Beckers, "Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death. To understand the underlying cause of disease using an MRI can take hours, is reserved to elite medical institutions and is a very complex procedure resulting in only partial diagnosis. Using the Arterys System together with cloud computation, the diagnoses can be made in a non-invasive MR imaging procedure that is quick, accessible and easy for both the patient and the radiologist."
- here is the announcement