Preclinical Global Support
As part of our on-going commitment to our customers, Siemens Healthcare proudly operates a worldwide service and support infrastructure. Siemens Molecular Imaging customers can rely on a highly trained and specialized team to provide infield and remote technical support for clinical, preclinical and cyclotron solutions installed globally. Siemens service infrastructure provides factory and regional housing for spare parts and an established call center support service to customers, via Siemens Customer Care Center (SCCC), which offers access to local, regional and factory support when needed. Siemens is committed to maintaining full parts, labor and service support to its installed base. If you should have any questions or would like more information regarding the support of any Siemens preclinical product, please contact your local service representative.
Preclinical Research and Development
Siemens continues to invest in preclinical research and development to maintain the performance and reliability of our customers' systems. On-going innovations include recent developments for acquisition and analysis, Inveon Acquisition Workplace (IAW) 2.0 and Inveon Research Workplace (IRW) 4.2. Further details about these developments and features can be found below. Development will be ongoing to support installed systems with future releases as needed to maintain longevity and performance of our customers’ investment.
Inveon Acquisition Workplace 2.0 (IAW 2.0)
IAW 2.0 for Inveon scanners features redesigned underlying software architecture, providing a new lookandfeel user interface with greater stability and workflow flexibility. IAW 2.0 provides feature enhancements that improve daily routine quality control tasks, offers new and faster reconstruction algorithms, and enhances workflow flexibility to increase user productivity.
New User Interface
• Redesigned software architecture
• Fewer and more logical command icons and controls with easy to identify graphics enhance the user’s experience and are easier for new users to learn Animal Positioning
• Specimen positioning is made easy with scan position setup tool, allowing users to identify where on the pallet/bed the subject is and position accordingly CT Improvements
• Centeroffset, dark/light calibrations, and source conditioning are performed with a new dedicated calibrations tool that can be run in as few as two clicks each morning
• A new implementation of Feldkamp that is significantly faster than COBRA and produces sharper images
• Two new iterative CT reconstruction algorithms—MAP and OSEM—which can reconstruct with less data‒e.g., shorter exposure times, fewer projections and lower current,‒therefore exposing the specimen to less radiation dose. In addition, these algorithms are less susceptible to truncation artifacts when attenuating material lies outside of the field of view.
• Multiple beamhardening correction sets are now supported; users are able to add their own custom beamhardening correction coefficients for specific research purposes, in addition to the factoryprovided sets for mice and rats
PET Improvements
• A dedicated panel for PET daily quality control has been introduced to improve and streamline user workflow
• New transformation matrix creator allows users to create matrices from their IAW interface easily
• New Exact Fourier 1 rebinning method can improve the quality of 2D reconstructions
• Reconstruction performance is significantly improved. This includes a MAP reconstruction algorithm which is now 8x faster, and 3DRP which is now 6x faster than previously experienced.
SPECT Improvements
• IAW 2.0 introduces a special normalization file coined “crystalgram” that contains all the data IAW needs in order to generate a normalization file in any energy window on-the-fly during reconstruction
• New transformation matrix creator allows users to easily create matrices from the IAW interface
• Dual-isotope imaging
• New automated acquisition mode allows users to enter only specimen or object length and scan time required. IAW 2.0 will then automatically calculate bed travel, rotations, proper scanning length, projections per rotation and angle between projections. (A custom mode is still available to give a user control over all settings.)
• New SPECT scatter correction with factory defaults for each isotope allows customers to add custom window sets to further enhance their research outcomes
• New point spread function (PSF) system model based reconstruction for improved image quality
• Semi-quantitative SPECT is now reality with IAW 2.0 and IRW 4.2. SPECT data can be C-Tattenuated and scatter corrected to yield more quantitatively accurate images.
Upgrading to IAW 2.0
All Inveon systems are eligible to be upgraded. To help you prepare for this, here are a few important points to keep in mind:
• IAW 2.0, along with IRW Viewer, is released and service has commenced.
• Downtime will vary depending on system configuration. Your local CSE will perform the upgrade onsite. Estimated upgrade times are, ~1 day for single modalities, ~2 days for Inveon SPECT•CT and PET•CT and ~3 days for Inveon tri-modality systems (SPECT•PET•CT).
• Setups and calibrations will be required and will be performed by the local CSE during the upgrade; these may include new flood images, detector setup and PET normalization, and single flood image and crystal lookups for SPECT with either 57 Co or 99m Tc. Please note that all other isotopes must be performed by site personnel.
• Protocols from previous versions of IAW are not compatible with IAW 2.0. However, a protocol conversion tool will be provided for ease of transition. These conversions should then be reviewed by users to confirm that all parameters have been converted correctly.
• IAW 2.0 also enables Siemens Remote Service (SRS) which allows remote connectivity to your system. SRS enables proactive event monitoring, remote diagnosis/repair and software updates.
To find out more, contact your local Siemens service representative.
Training
New instructional videos for your Inveon Acquisition Workplace 2.0 are now available on the MI Preclinical University.
SPECT Detector Setup Procedure: Learn how to perform a SPECT detector setup on your Inveon multi-modality scanner. This will allow you to add additional SPECT isotope scanning capabilities which may not exist in the present setup of the scanner.
Scan Positioning Panel: Learn about the new “Scan Positioning Panel” graphical interface. Explore how the panel will allow you to easily define the scan range for each protocol within your workflow.
Existing users may register for the trainings here.
Inveon Research Workplace 4.2 (IRW 4.2)
IRW 4.2, the newest version of our visualization and analysis software, provides advanced productivity features that enhance your workflow and research outcomes and flexible and customizable processing workflows that increase processing throughput by up to 2 times. IRW 4.2 improves reproducibility between users, providing more confident quantitative results. In addition, the combined power of IAW 2.0 and IRW 4.2 delivers semiquantitative SPECT analysis, further expanding the research capabilities of Inveon.
Redefining Research
• New region of interest (ROI) limited volume calculations, allow users to limit calculations to defined regions of their choosing. In addition, this allows object removal such as hot regions like the bladder or positioning tools with nonstandard cropping, improving image visualization and enabling advanced processing workflows.
Sharing Discoveries
• New screen capture functionalities enable easier sharing of results and images with colleagues and collaborators.
Advancing Productivity
• New user-definable pre-processing workflow templates improve overall pre-processing efficiency by cutting loading and pre-processing time in half. In addition, reproducibility between users is improved with the use of predefined pre-processing workflow templates, as this helps ensure the same steps will be performed each time for each specimen.
To find out more, contact your local Siemens service representative.
Future Conference and Meeting Participation
Siemens Preclinical Solutions has actively participated at industry conferences and events for more than 10 years and is proud to have been a part of this unique and diverse field of translational research. Siemens will assess, on a case by case basis, its future participation at industry-related events and conferences to best serve our customers.