Revolutionizing Heart Disease Diagnosis

March 31, 2010

Dr. Ehud Dafni, CEO of Israeli company Arineta, has invented the first Computing Tomography (CT) imaging system that is specially designed for the heart. In the past, CT imaging of the heart was not possible because the organ is constantly in motion, beating. Recently, advanced technology has made it possible to capture a still image of the heart, but only with the use of expensive equipment that is not specifically designed for cardiac imaging and utilizes large amounts of radiation.

In contrast, explains Dafni, Arineta's imaging system is small, inexpensive, and uses only a small quantity of radiation. Since it is low-cost and easy to operate, such a machine could be used for preventive screenings, just as mammography is used today for early diagnosis of breast cancer.

Such screenings are not feasible today. “Today, there is a general purpose machine, the best of which costs [US] $2.5 million, weighs about three tons, can't be operated in the doctor's office, is hard to operate, and uses a relatively large amount of radiation,” explains Dafni. “There is no way to know if a patient will have a heart attack until he actually has one,” says Dafni. In contrast, with imaging, “Doctors can find out who will benefit from treatment, prescribe medication, and afterward follow up and see if medication worked, which you can't today.” For more information: [email protected], + 972-4-637-4000.

Excerpts of an article by Ilana Teitelbaum, www.israel21c.org

Photo Credit: