Here are some of the highlights we have experienced:

I have now performed several PCI procedures on the Alphenix Biplane. In comparison with the Infinx-i system, it provides significantly enhanced visibility and improved contrast at vascular margins. This is particularly useful for channel tracking chronic total occlusion.
With the conventional system, we used a frame rate of 15 fps, but with the Alphenix Biplane, a rate of 7.5 fps was perfectly acceptable for most patients. What’s more, image lag near vascular margins was suppressed to minimal levels, even with view angles strongly affected by cardiac motion, and the system’s performance was further improved by a standard update, installed in October 2018.

Designed to maintain the required level of visualization at a much lower dose, Spot ROI and Spot Fluoroscopy are both intuitive breakthrough technologies only available for Alphenix interventional systems.

With Spot ROI, the standard level of radiation exposure is used only in the region of interest, while a substantially lower level of radiation exposure is used in surrounding areas – in some cases, 60-70% less. In addition, Spot ROI minimizes scattered radiation and reduces exposure not only to the patient but also to the operators by limiting it to the area in which intervention is performed.

What’s more, I frequently use Spot ROI in situations where I need to focus on a limited area, such as in bifurcation wiring procedures. With the conventional system, when we attempted to reduce the exposure dose by collimating the area to be treated, the areas outside the ROI were completely black, and there was a risk of structures or devices moving out of the frame due to cardiac motion. Operators were also forced to maintain a high level of concentration when viewing through a small hole in a totally black background. With Spot ROI, on the other hand, the surrounding reference areas appear as if seen through frosted glass, and the entire image moves in synchronization.

The Dose Tracking System (DTS) is considered to be particularly helpful for inexperienced operators, who tend to perform entire procedures without changing the imaging exposure angle. DTS can assist the operator by providing a visual warning of potential hot spots. Plus, the estimated exposure dose to the patient's skin is calculated in real-time and displayed as a color-map on a patient model.

Toyohashi Heart Center currently has four catheterization labs: one with an Alphenix Biplane, and three with systems from other companies. Compared to the systems from other manufacturers, the Alphenix Biplane’s C-arm is considerably faster and smoother. In fact, the time required to move the C-arm through various positions during a set of routine examination procedures, was around one minute and forty seconds – considerably less than the two minutes or more it took for the systems from other companies.

The Alphenix Biplane features a tablet console (Alphenix Tablet) that allows a variety of operations to be performed easily by pressing a single key or button. I have not yet used this tablet, but it definitely appears to reduce the workload for our radiology technicians. When new functions are added to a device or system, operation tends to become more complicated, but Alphenix has successfully streamlined the process by offering simple and intuitive touch-panel operation.