GE HealthCare has unveiled a new mammography system with artificial-intelligence-powered features that it says are aimed at easing the pressures from a shortage of trained technologists.
The Pristina Via breast scanner features automated image acquisition with zero clicks to help minimize routine tasks, the company said, in addition to requiring no wait time between exposures. This allows for imaging cycles up to twice as fast as other mammography hardware, according to GE HealthCare.
“During our intensive collaboration with our end users in the design phase, we heard time and again that the technologist’s workday can feel like a race against the clock,” Pooja Pathak, global general manager for mammography, said in a statement. “Pristina Via is our answer to this challenge.”
The new addition, which builds on the company’s previous Senographe Pristina platform, made its debut at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America, being held in Chicago. Pristina Via also offers backward compatibility with imaging centers’ data systems as well as vendor-neutral prior scan comparison.
In addition, GE HealthCare said the system uses the lowest radiation dose across all breast thicknesses, compared to major scanners on the market.
The company cited findings from the American Society of Radiologic Technologists detailing a steep increase in job vacancy rates, from 6% in 2021 to 18% this year. Meanwhile, the number of women seeking mammograms has remained steady.
Earlier this year, GE HealthCare launched two ultrasound systems aimed at women’s health and obstetrics, with AI tools capable of automatically identifying and annotating measurements of fetal anatomy and reducing the overall number of keystrokes required by a technician.