NEWS on V.MKI MEDIPATTERN NAMED EXCLUSIVE CANADIAN DISTRIBUTOR FOR SONOCINE
The Medipattern Corp. is the exclusive distributor for SonoCine's Automated Whole Breast Ultrasound System (AWBUS) in Canada. AWBUS is used as an adjunct to mammography for breast cancer screening. AWBUS automatically acquires a sequence of ultrasound images which completely capture all of the breast tissue as individually focused slices compared to mammography which captures the breast in two compressed planes. SonoCine recently received Canadian Medical Devices Conformity Assessment System (CMDCAS) approval from Health Canada as a class II medical device and is available for immediate sales in Canada. The first system will be installed this week at Clinique Radiologique Audet in Quebec City. The product is offered on a capital purchase or a fee-per-procedure basis.
AWBUS, when used as an adjunct to mammography, was shown to detect 100 percent more cancers as compared to mammography alone and is particularly effective for women with dense breasts. Furthermore, in that trial of over 4,400 women, radiologist reading ultrasound image data from SonoCine found cancers that were 50 percent smaller on average than the cancers found when reviewing mammography alone. In addition, AWBUS has tripled the detection of cancers that are smaller than 1 cm, which improves dramatically the prognosis of the patients. The positive predictive value (PPV) for the biopsies resulting from the AWBUS exams in this study was 38 percent(1) as compared to typical positive predictive values for mammography alone of approximately 27 percent as reported by Halladay et al in 2010.(2)