Most breast imaging technologies require expensive, specialized facilities for their operation. For example, digital mammography/DBT, breast CT, MRI use ionizing radiation, so the exam rooms need lead shielding inside the walls to protect staff and other patients from radiation exposure.
MRI Facility Challenges
Similarly, rooms with MRI scanners need metal RF and magnetic shielding inside the walls to block out electromagnetic interference that can distort the MRI images and to contain the magnetic field generated by the MRI inside the scan room. MRI scanners also need extensive cooling systems to keep the MRI’s powerful magnets operating at an extremely low temperature.
Advanced Simplicity of QTI’s Breast Acoustic CT™ Platform
Building and maintaining these types of specialized facilities is time consuming, expensive, and use limiting.
QTI’s Breast Acoustic CT™ platform uses safe, low-frequency sound waves. Installation of the QTI scanner is faster and inexpensive, requiring a smaller footprint and no specialized facilities, similar to those for hand-held ultrasound systems.
QTI’s scanner fits inside a standard (10 ft x 15 ft) room. And the scans can even be performed in a mobile van, to be used in military low-resource settings. For example, portable units can be deployed in military-health settings for rapid screening and triage.
Improving on HHUS Operator-Dependent Technology
While HHUS systems don’t require an expensive facility to operate they do require significant training and experience for technicians and radiologists to obtain accurate images. This limits the effective use of HHUS in low-resource, rural areas that lack experienced HHUS technicians and radiologists.
QTI’s Breast Acoustic CT™ platform is easy to learn and operate. The automated, software-controlled scan does not require specialized training to reliably produce high-quality, high-resolution, 3D images.
QTI’s Key Advantages for Non-traditional Settings:
- No expensive and specialized shielding, cooling, or power required
- Fits in a standard (10 x 15 ft) room — can even be used for mobile operations in a van
- Scan table on wheels and similar size to standard medical office exam table
- Quiet operation
- QTscan takes 10-12 min/breast— depending on breast size
- Easy to learn and operate — no specialized training needed