HAMBURG, Germany — October 19, 2024 — At the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) 2024 Congress, GE HealthCare unveils Aurora, a new dual head SPECT/CT with AI-powered technologies. The system is designed to help clinicians see and do more, aiming to help expand the range of procedures available for cardiac patients and provide support for conditions such as cancer and neurological disorders – all of which rely on early detection and precise localization of abnormalities are key for effective intervention.

“GE HealthCare is proud to be a leader in the integration of machine learning and AI advancements for more than a decade,” shares Jean-Luc Procaccini, President & CEO, Molecular Imaging and Computed Tomography, GE HealthCare. “We've witnessed firsthand how these technologies can address some of the industry's toughest challenges, such as data overload, physician burnout, and the need for real-time operational efficiency. With this experience top of mind, we designed Aurora to harness AI for exceptional image quality as well as enhanced workflow efficiency. It would be difficult to find a dual head hybrid system with more AI-powered solutions than Aurora – and we have full confidence clinicians will appreciate the difference.”

As healthcare continues to shift toward precision medicine and personalized care, clinicians require more advanced SPECT/CT solutions. These nuclear medicine systems combine functional imaging from single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) with anatomical details from computed tomography (CT), offering clinicians a comprehensive view of both the physiological and structural aspects of diseases.

Aurora is designed to optimize both SPECT and CT technologies to capture gamma rays emitted by radioactive tracers. These findings are then turned into data which help create images showing the distribution of the tracer and enabling diagnoses across various care areas.

It also features GE HealthCare’s Revolution Ascend CT technology, offering additional design solutions to enable advanced capabilities that extend beyond routine imaging. This includes 40mm CT detector coverage – twice that of other hybrid systems – with a 75 cm-wide CT bore to help enhance patient comfort while facilitating high-speed scanning (0.35-second rotation speed) and offering up to 128 slices for advanced procedures like coronary CT angiography.

To help customers more easily process the vast amounts of data produced, GE HealthCare designed Aurora to unlock the full potential of digital and AI, offering new opportunities to help clinicians solve operational and diagnostic challenges as well as develop personalized approaches for better patient outcomes. These enhancements include:

Clarify DL deep learning image reconstruction, which is designed to enhance bone SPECT image quality performance, an important factor in increasing diagnostic confidence – in a clinical evaluation, Clarify DL's image resolution was rated as better in 98% of the exams;
ASiR-V for lower dose (up to 82% relative to FBP), reduced noise levels up to 91% and improved spatial resolution at the same image noise;
SnapShot Freeze 2 for improvement in motion blur reduction while maintaining high spatial resolution for whole heart motion correction;
SwiftScan SPECT, which enables up to a 25% reduction in scan time or injected dose while maintaining lesion detectability;
Evolution, Aurora’s resolution recovery algorithm designed to overcome conventional imaging trade-offs by modelling the collimator/detector response – enables up to a 50% reduction in scan time or injected dose; and
SmartMar for excellent artifact-less imaging, which enables a reduction photon starvation, beam hardening, and streak artifacts caused by metal in the body.
Finally, Aurora is equipped with Effortless Workflow, which offers a set of efficiency solutions – including Auto Prescription and Smart Plan – enhanced by digital automation and design innovations to help ease technologists' intervention and intervention and help make exams smooth and comfortable for patients.

“Aurora is the machine we were waiting for,” Bruno Vanderlinden, Radiation Physicist, Brussels University Hospital. “We can program the machine to run all the tests we do in nuclear medicine. It really is the Swiss army knife of imaging machines in nuclear medicine. We were able to set up acquisitions for 2-D, 3-D, and dynamic imaging, with high-quality CT scans and a significant reduction in radiation dose.”

Click here for more information on Aurora and its digital and AI solutions.

Increasing patient access to precision care

In addition to Aurora, GE HealthCare is proud to showcase the latest additions to its Molecular Imaging portfolio at the EANM 2024 Congress. These solutions aim to enhance usability and increase the accessibility of precision care tools for the global practice of personalized medicine.

As clinicians seek to practice more personalized medicine – including theranostics, a type of precision care that combines diagnostics and therapy – they increasingly look to leverage imaging techniques that more accurately inform diagnoses and measure functional and molecular responses to therapy.

In response, GE HealthCare aims to develop and deliver a range of products that support these efforts and empower global healthcare providers to address the needs of all patient populations:

MINItrace Magni with solid target technology: Designed to be a small footprint, cost effective cyclotron for reliable, in-house production of commercial PET tracers and radiometals – like Gallium-68. When produced in combination with the company’s TRACERcenter – which is designed to serve as a complete PET radiopharmacy solution – the resulting radiopharmaceuticals can help physicians identify and diagnose clinical signs across care areas – including oncology, cardiology, and neurology.
Omni Legend 21 cm: A performance-oriented configuration of the Omni Legend PET/CT scalable platform designed to evolve with healthcare system needs across care areas, including: shorter scan times and lower doses without compromising image quality in oncology; support for increasing PET amyloid imaging in Alzheimer's diagnosis and treatment follow up in neurology; and exceptional cardiac diagnostics, accommodating a range of tracers – including fast decay and emerging tracers – in cardiology.
Omni Legend mobile: A portable, all-in-one PET/CT solution that further extends the capabilities of Omni Legend to regional or local scan centers, helping increase access to advanced imaging while helping reduce travel burdens, especially for more vulnerable or remote patient communities.
MIM Software: A comprehensive software solution portfolio designed to boost efficiency and promote precision care. Key products, including MIM Encore and MIM SurePlan MRT, offer clinicians and researchers intuitive image processing and interpretation, AI-based image segmentation, tumor burden quantitation, practical dosimetry, workflow standardization and automation — all in a single unified vendor-neutral platform.
Driven by its mission to create a world where healthcare has no limits, GE HealthCare is also a proud collaborator with and trusted partner to leading global health and academic institutions around the world. Most recently, the company announced:

University Medicine Essen’s new Theranostics Center of Excellence: With the aim of increasing access to precision care, GE HealthCare is proud to collaborate with University Medicine Essen (UME) in the establishment of a new Theranostics Center of Excellence. The Center will be outfitted with the latest GE HealthCare technologies and solutions to support the clinical practice and advanced research of more personalized approaches to cancer care in Germany and around the world.
Thera4Care: An initiative aimed at revolutionizing the use of theranostics to broaden patient access in Europe. The €25.3 million project gathers 29 partners from top European institutions – including GE HealthCare – to expand the use of theranostics in the region by creating, implementing, and disseminating standardized, scalable methods for the production, detection, and monitoring of key theranostic isotopes, from the manufacturing and early delivery of diagnostics through to therapy.
For more information on GE HealthCare’s impressive Molecular Imaging and MIM Software solutions, please visit gehealthcare.com and mimsoftware.com or stop by the company’s booth at the European Association of Nuclear Medicine 2024 Congress in Hamburg, Germany.

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