News | Press Releases

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April 6, 2009

TOSHIBA’S AQUILION ONE HONORED WITH MEDICAL DESIGN EXCELLENCE AWARD

World’s First Dynamic Volume CT Provides Quick, Accurate Diagnosis and Increased Patient Safety

TUSTIN, California — April 6, 2009 — Toshiba America Medical Systems, Inc.’s Aquilion® ONE has been named a winner in the Medical Design Excellence Awards, a program organized by Canon Communications and sponsored by the company’s Medical Device and Diagnostic Industry magazine. The world’s first dynamic volume CT scanner is a winner in the Radiology and Electromechanical Device category. The Medical Design Excellence Awards are the premier awards for the medical technology industry. Gold and Silver winners will be named in each category at the Medical Design and Manufacturing East 2009 Conference and Exposition in New York in June.

The Medical Design Excellence Awards were created to recognize the achievement of medical device manufacturers, their suppliers and the many people behind the scenes – engineers, scientists, designers and clinicians — who are responsible for creating innovative products that are changing the face of healthcare.

“The Medical Design Excellence Awards recognizes Toshiba’s commitment to developing world class equipment,” said Doug Ryan, senior director, CT Business Unit, Toshiba. “This award is a testament to the research, engineering and product development capabilities of the company.”

Toshiba’s vision for the Aquilion ONE dates back to the early 1990s. Having recently pioneered the development of helical scanning, an innovation that altered the way patients were diagnosed with CT, Toshiba defined a new vision for the future of CT. Helical scanning techniques provided the breakthrough capabilities to cover more anatomical area and acquire volume data sets through several rotations around the body. However, Toshiba and its customers were already thinking ahead to the next breakthrough — a CT system that would cover a whole organ, like the heart or brain, in one rotation. To fulfill this customer vision Toshiba developed a roadmap to build the world’s first dynamic volume CT system.

When Toshiba developed its first Aquilion multi-detector product, the company’s engineers carefully designed the multi-detector system from the ground up based on customer feedback so that it could evolve into future models. This development philosophy was a totally innovative approach to CT technology as it was completely new in all aspects, not simply modifications of single-detector platforms. Using the same philosophy, the Aquilion ONE has been designed using key elements from the multi-detector design concept to support both today’s applications and future expectations for CT imaging.

“Customer feedback was critical to the development of the Aquilion ONE,” continued Ryan. “Partnering with our customers to ensure that the Aquilion ONE would make a profound difference to the medical community was a key element in the development program.”

Introduced in November 2007, dynamic volume CT scans an entire organ in a single pass and produces 4D videos that show an organ’s structure, its movement and blood flow. In comparison, a 64-slice, 128-slice or 256-slice CT scan can only capture a portion of an organ in a single pass, requiring physicians to “stitch together” multiple scans of an organ to get a full image. The new technology helps reduce multiple exposures to radiation and exam time.

About Toshiba’s Aquilion CT Product Line Recognition

The Aquilion® CT product line has received numerous accolades including the number one ranking in CT from MD Buyline since 2002 (six consecutive years). The Aquilion CT line has also been named Best in KLAS in 2006 and 2007; Best in KLAS in 2008 for 64-detector row and above; and Frost & Sullivan’s “Healthcare Innovation Award in Cardiovascular Imaging” in 2008. (For more information about KLAS, visit www.KLASresearch.com.) Most recently, Toshiba’s service for the Aquilion line was ranked number one in 21 out of 34 ServiceTrak Imaging’s 2008 report on CT system service.

The Aquilion® ONE, the world’s first dynamic volume CT, utilizes 320 ultra-high resolution detector rows to image an entire organ in a single gantry rotation and shows dynamic function like blood flow. Since its introduction in November 2007, the Aquilion ONE has been named Popular Science magazine’s “Best of What’s New 2008 — Personal Health Category,” rt Image‘s 2008 Most Valuable Product (MVP), Frost & Sullivan’s Global CT Systems Product Differentiation Innovation Award 2007 and AuntMinnie.com’s “Minnies 2008 — Best New Radiology Device.”

About Toshiba

With headquarters in Tustin, Calif., Toshiba America Medical Systems markets, sells, distributes and services diagnostic imaging systems, and coordinates clinical diagnostic imaging research for all modalities in the United States. Toshiba Medical Systems Corp., an independent group company of Toshiba Corp., is a global leading provider of diagnostic medical imaging systems and comprehensive medical solutions, such as CT, Cath & EP Labs, X-ray, Ultrasound, MRI and information systems. Toshiba Corp. is a leader in information and communications systems, electronic components, consumer products, and power systems. Toshiba has approximately 198,000 employees worldwide and annual sales of $77 billion. For more information, visit www.medical.toshiba.com.