Hitachi Medical Systems America Inc. (HMSA) is debuting a new cardiac PET system – the SceptreC – at the annual Society of Nuclear Medicine (SNM) meeting that begins Saturday in San Diego, Calif. SceptreC is specifically configured for cardiac PET to allow the utilization of both Rubidium-82 for myocardial perfusion and 18-FDG for myocardial viability procedures, the company said.

"Whole-body PET/CT offers significant throughput advantages for oncology," said Raymond Wtulich, PET & PET/CT product manager. "However, in cardiac imaging only one bed position is required for a stress or rest acquisition making dedicated PET a comparable throughput solution at a dramatically lower cost for both equipment and service."

The SceptreC’s fast acquisition provides an efficient assessment of both stress and rest myocardial perfusion in less than 40 minutes. The system also is optimized with 3D Pico electronics to provide high-count rate capability and includes the Emory CardiacSoftware PETtools for cardiac quantification to deliver an alternative solution to SPECT or PET/CT for myocardial perfusion and viability studies, Hitachi said.