GE HealthCare is introducing CT-Navigation, which offers clinicians real-time, 3D CT images for stereotactic needle guidance in interventional and oncological procedures as well as biopsies, ablations, drainage, therapeutics, and more.

“CT-Navigation is an intuitive technology that helps us achieve this by enabling clinicians to select and follow an out-of-plane trajectory for a safer path that avoids critical organs and reaches deep-located targets with impressive accuracy, while reducing procedure time and possibly radiation dose,” says Laura Crocetti, MD, PhD, associate professor of radiology at the University of Pisa in Italy. “Altogether, it helps us ensure better patient outcomes while expanding the boundaries of our practice.”

Instead of working wholly within the CT system’s narrow bore, interventionalists using CT-Navigation can simply place a sensor on the patient inside the gantry. After scans are complete and the patient is removed from inside the system, interventionalists have full range of motion while navigating a needle more easily and safely through the patient’s anatomy using the placed sensor and detailed CT images.

“To achieve precision care, we must provide clinicians with the tools and insights they need to deliver the right treatment, at the right time, to the right patient,” says Jean-Luc Procaccini, president and CEO of molecular imaging and CT at GE HealthCare. “CT-Navigation does just that—acting as an anatomical GPS for interventionalists to use and care for patients with increased ease and accuracy. We are thrilled to now increase global access to this innovative solution and its many clinical benefits to healthcare systems around the world.”

CT-Navigation was developed by IMACTIS and became part of the GE HealthCare portfolio of solutions upon close of the previously announced acquisition of the France-based company.

It is the result of more than a decade spent studying provider needs and designing a navigation system to improve safety, increase accuracy, and enhance the intervention workflow. 

The result enables:

  • Intervention planning: The system is designed to show interventionalists the anticipated trajectory of their needles when they plan their intervention and help them select the best approach. It allows anatomical exploration and planning, while being in the room, close to the patient, using real-time images computed by the system, and can help reach the target and avoid critical structures and organs. 
  • Precision care: The system provides interventionalists with real-time 3D navigation during the intervention, as well as the information they need to deal with complex situations—like out-of-axial plane trajectory—and reduce the number of control scans. 
  • Reduced variability: The workflow helps to reduce variability and improve reproducibility..