TechniScan awarded U.S. Patent for 3-D, Warm Bath Ultrasound system

May 13 2010

A newly awarded U.S. Patent will protect TechniScan, Inc's., (OTC Bulletin Board: TSNI) novel way to image, biopsy and treat breast cancer.

U.S. Patent 7,699,783 B2 titled "Method for Imaging and Treating a Breast" covers the company's design of a 3-D, Warm Bath Ultrasound™ system that images while a woman lies prone on a table with her breast comfortably immersed in a warm water, state-of-the art scanning system.

Since she is lying on a table with her breast through an opening, the breast is in a pendant, uncompressed position that allows for a true three-dimensional image to be constructed.  

"Imaging of the non-compressed pendant breast, similar to positioning for breast MRI, provides reproducible, 3-D anatomically accurate detail," said Yuri Parisky, M.D., medical imaging director at Mammoth Hospital in Calif. "It is the ideal position to image the breast."

A vital element of the new patent is the table design of the Warm Bath Ultrasound™ (WBU™) system, which rises above the water bath tank after the scan. This functionality has three key benefits: The woman remains on the same table for diagnostics and treatment, it maintains the known position of the tumor or lesion and allows the three-dimensional image to be utilized to guide treatment instruments.

"In essence, our WBU system provides a 3-D navigational map of the breast, and this could be useful to breast surgeons, radiologists and oncologists," said Barry Hanover, chief operating officer at TechniScan and one of the inventors of the system. "The fact that our table can also be raised, with the breast maintained in the same position as during the 3-D image capture, could improve the efficiency and accuracy of biopsies and minimally invasive treatment of cancers."

The WBU system is radiation-free and produces three unique sets of images that utilize reflection ultrasound, speed of sound and attenuation of sound, resulting in an ultrasound computed tomography image.  The goal of the 360-degree, high-resolution images is to provide new diagnostic information to doctors who seek to find cancers when they are smaller and easier to treat.

Recently the proprietary algorithms that gather and process the complex set of data generated in the WBU system were also awarded a patent. The patent will protect the company's intellectual property and the revolutionary way it utilizes the entire ultrasound spectrum to form its unique images of the breast.