CorTechs Labs, Inc. Introduces NeuroQuant: the First Medical Device for Quantifying Regional Brain Atrophy in Patients with Neurodegenerative Disorders

   Many neurological disorders produce regional brain atrophy that can be detected with MRI scanning. CorTechs' NeuroQuant(TM) image analysis system is the first practical solution for accurately quantifying such changes in clinical settings. Neurologists, neuroradiologists, and other experts in the diagnosis and treatment of CNS disorders will be able to use this product to derive information that may help them to monitor disease processes in individual patients. According to James Brewer, MD, PhD, a neurologist at the University of California, San Diego who studies how the brain changes in Alzheimer's disease: "There is a great deal of scientific evidence that brain structures such as the hippocampus begin to atrophy in the early stages of dementia. Reliably characterizing such changes based on MRI data requires use of quantitative techniques, but previous methods for deriving numerical information from MRI scans have been too slow and cumbersome for use outside of research studies. By post-processing MRI data with NeuroQuant(TM) we can now routinely consider quantitative information about the extent and progression of atrophy in a patient's brain when evaluating treatment options." NeuroQuant(TM) can also be used as an efficient means for deriving quantitative imaging biomarkers in clinical trial research.

   CorTechs President, Michael E. Smith, PhD, highlights the technical achievement that NeuroQuant(TM) represents: "CorTechs' outstanding engineering team and affiliated researchers have developed a powerful pipeline of sophisticated analysis processes that can quantify MRIs without human intervention. These techniques first minimize scanner image-acquisition artifacts that have traditionally been a barrier to standardized, automated MRI analysis. Intelligent image analysis and feature extraction methods are then used to recognize anatomical structures in the data that are widely known to atrophy in some diseases. Numerical information about the sizes of such structures is extracted from the images and provided to the referring physician in the form of a convenient and easy-to-read report, with values that can be immediately compared to age-appropriate normative data."

   NeuroQuant(TM) has received 510(k) clearance from the FDA for marketing as a medical device "intended for automatic labeling, visualization and volumetric quantification of segmentable brain structures from a set of MR images". It can receive MRI scans routed from a scanner or Picture-Archiving and Communication System (PACS) as input and can automatically return age-related atrophy reports and numerical and color-blended anatomical volumes annotated with graphical overlays to most DICOM-compliant PACS viewers or third-party workstations. NeuroQuant(TM) can be configured to provide automated MRI quantification solutions that meet the needs of independent healthcare providers, imaging centers, and large enterprises conducting multi-site clinical trials.

   Keywords: Atrophy, Diagnosis, Diagnostics, Neurology, CorTech Labs Inc.

   This article was prepared by Pharma Business Week editors from staff and other reports. Copyright 2007, Pharma Business Week via NewsRx.com.

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