Seno Medical’s Photoacoustic Imaging Modality Added to DICOM^® Standards Update

Seno’s Imagio^® System Uses Photoacoustic (Opto-acoustic) and Ultrasound Imaging to help doctors better characterize suspicious breast lesions to avoid unnecessary invasive biopsies and improve patient care.

[San Antonio, TX – July 20, 2023] Seno Medical’s technology platform for the Imagio^® Breast Imaging System - which includes Photoacoustic imaging - has been added to the Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM^®) Standards update version 2023c (Supp 229). The DICOM Standard is managed by the Medical Imaging & Technology Alliance - a division of the National Electrical Manufacturers Association.

This inclusion in the internationally-accepted standards enables photoacoustic images to be accepted as part of a best practice standard for medical imaging providers.

Imagio^® opto-acoustic/ultrasound (OA/US) technology combines laser optics (photoacoustic imaging) and grayscale ultrasound to offer fused functional and anatomical breast imaging. The opto-acoustic images provide a unique blood map in and around breast masses, while the ultrasound provides a traditional anatomical image. Through the appearance or absence of two hallmark indicators of cancer — angiogenesis and deoxygenation — the Imagio^® OA/US Breast Imaging System is a more effective tool to help radiologists confirm or rule out malignancy compared with traditional diagnostic imaging modalities. And it does this without exposing patients to ionizing radiation (x-rays) or contrast agents. 

DICOM^® — Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine — is the international standard for medical images and related information. It defines the formats for medical images that can be exchanged with the data and quality necessary for clinical use. DICOM^® is implemented in almost every radiology, cardiology imaging, and radiotherapy device (X-ray, CT, MRI, ultrasound, etc.), and increasingly in devices in other medical domains such as ophthalmology and dentistry. With hundreds of thousands of medical imaging devices in use, DICOM^® is one of the most widely deployed healthcare messaging Standards in the world. 

Seno Medical Instruments, Inc. is a San Antonio, Texas-based medical imaging company committed to developing and commercializing a new modality in cancer diagnosis: opto-acoustic imaging. Approved by the US FDA in January 2021 with additional approval in June 2022 including its state-of-the-art ultrasound technologies, Seno Medical’s Imagio^® Breast Imaging System fuses opto-acoustic technology with ultrasound (OA/US) to generate real-time functional and anatomical images of the breast. To learn more about Seno Medical’s OA/US imaging technology and applications, visit www.SenoMedical.com. 

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