GE HealthCare has announced the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 510(k) clearance of Precision DL, a deep learning-based image processing software.

This new addition to GE HealthCare’s Effortless Recon DL portfolio offers advanced image quality enhancements, resembling those achieved with hardware-based Time-of-Flight (ToF) reconstruction methods.

Precision DL utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) technology and is currently available on GE HealthCare’s fastest-selling PET/CT system, Omni Legend. This cutting-edge system already boasts over twice the sensitivity of previous digital scanners, resulting in faster scan times and exceptional small lesion detectability.

By incorporating Precision DL image processing software into Omni Legend, GE HealthCare introduces a new era of PET/CT performance and outcomes. This technological advancement allows clinicians to achieve exceptionally fine resolutions, decode coincidence events, and make informed diagnoses and treatment plans.

Engineered with a sophisticated deep neural network, Precision DL has been trained on thousands of images created using various reconstruction methods, including ToF reconstruction. As a result, it delivers the image quality benefits typically associated with hardware-based ToF reconstruction, such as enhanced contrast-to-noise ratio and contrast recovery.

A study published in the European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging showcased the effectiveness of Precision DL. The study demonstrated notable improvements in feature quantitation, overall image sharpness, and diagnostic value, particularly in terms of lesion detectability and diagnostic confidence of PET/CT images reconstructed without ToF using deep learning models trained for ToF image enhancement.

GE HealthCare’s Precision DL image processing software, combined with the exceptional capabilities of Omni Legend’s ultra-high sensitivity and third-generation digital detector technology, represents a significant leap forward in PET/CT performance.

The transition from ToF technology to this next generation of PET/CT performance empowers clinicians to achieve unprecedented resolutions, enhancing the accuracy and reliability of diagnoses and treatment planning.

Jan Makela — GE HealthCare Imaging President and CEO said: “One of the main advantages of moving fully into the future of AI and deep learning is making state-of-the-art imaging accessible to more practices, across more care areas than ever before.

“Clinicians are seeing the value of applying deep learning technology to enhance image quality with our multi-modality family of Effortless Recon DL applications, which already includes AIR Recon DL for MR, TrueFidelity for CT, and Helix DL for X-ray. Now we are proud to add Precision DL for PET/CT, enabling more precise and personalized care across healthcare systems’ imaging departments.”

  artificial intelligence, GE Healthcare, Jan Makela, Precision DL, US FDA, US Food and Drug Administration, USA