iNtuition Faces Off With Accuracy and Speed at ECR 2009

VIENNA, AUSTRIA--(Marketwire - March 9, 2009) - TeraRecon, Inc. (www.terarecon.com), a global provider of advanced visualization solutions, today reported on the company's performance at the second annual Workstation Face-Off at the 21st European Congress of Radiology, held in Vienna, Austria.

The Face-Off, hosted by radiologists Anno Graser M.D and Christoph Becker, M.D. of the Ludwig-Maximillians University in Munich, pitched the stand-alone (thick client) workstations of four global 3D processing providers against TeraRecon's unique client-server advanced visualization solution, Aquarius iNtuition (thin client). TeraRecon was the only company to attempt the assigned tasks using a client-server system, with all other companies competing using the previous generation of technology: dedicated, thick-client, stand-alone workstations.

The challenges posed by Dr. Graser and Dr. Becker included review of a Cardiac Coronary CTA examination performed with low dose scanning, and a CT Colonography examination. Tasks included calculation of Left Ventricular Ejection Fraction (LVEF) for the Cardiac examination, and automatic detection (CAD) of colon polyps for the CT Colonography examination. The performance of the various systems was compared in terms of accuracy of the LVEF calculation, and the number of "false positives" for the CAD processing, with fewer false positives representing a better result, since these are the candidate findings proposed by software that radiologists must first review and then reject, consuming time unnecessarily.

Presenting for TeraRecon, Dr. Med. Christopher Herzog, Chief of Radiology at the Red Cross Clinic in Munich, Germany, performed all the tasks well within the allotted time using TeraRecon's newly released Aquarius iNtuition software, version 4.4. In addition to achieving all the tasks using client-server technology that allows for enterprise-wide access and distribution of advanced visualization capabilities, Dr. Herzog was also the only presenter to demonstrate secure web-browser-based distribution of interactive results from an e-mailed link, using TeraRecon's unique AquariusWEB technology.

TeraRecon's software exhibited the best accuracy in the two key quantitative comparisons, as reported by Dr. Graser in charts prepared during the event itself. In terms of the LVEF for the cardiac case, after all the companies had presented their results, Dr. Graser announced that the LVEF had been measured using Cardiac echo imaging, to be 70%. This result was not known to the companies in advance of the presentation, yet the TeraRecon system had found an ejection fraction of 69%, a finding twice as close to the echo result as the closest competitor. Results reported by other companies were substantially different, including one as low as 54%, which, the moderator observed, suggests a notably different clinical interpretation.

In terms of the automated detection of lesions in the CT Colonography examination, TeraRecon's "SphereFinder" technology performed an equal best, detecting the two true positives for polyps, along with two false positives. Other companies reported substantially higher rates for false positives, including reports of 10 findings and 20 findings for the two competing companies from the Midwestern-USA.

Dr. Herzog commented on the great benefit of the iNtuition system's automated pre-processing techniques, which makes possible automatic labeling of anatomy, and workflow management driven by these automatically detected anatomical landmarks. Dr. Herzog said, "iNtuition has really changed the way I read cardiac cases. Where I used to rely heavily on the axial images and refer to reconstructions as a complementary technique, I now find I can use the reconstructions more and more to drive the workflow, because with iNtuition, they really work. The improvement in the iNtuition technology over the past year or two is really a quantum leap that has a direct and positive impact on my interpretation process."

TeraRecon president Robert Taylor Ph.D said, "It's wonderful to see this objective validation of the performance of iNtuition not only in terms of speed and functionality, but also in terms of accuracy, both compared with competing systems, and objective standards. Furthermore, considering all this was achieved using client-server technology when all other companies had to rely on the previous generation of advanced visualization technology -- stand-alone, thick client workstations -- this really emphasizes the technological advantage that TeraRecon enjoys and the benefit this can bring to medical imaging practitioners and the patients in their care."

About TeraRecon, Inc. (www.terarecon.com)

TeraRecon Inc., a leader in advanced image processing and 3D visualization techniques, provides advanced imaging systems for medical and other visualization applications based on its unique and patented image processing technologies. A four-time winner of Frost and Sullivan awards, the company has developed a leading portfolio of products that advance the performance, quality, functionality, and integration of image processing and 3D visualization systems. Founded in 1997, TeraRecon has developed a unique family of powerful processors that are used in its real-time, enterprise-wide image processing solutions and real-time 3D volume rendering hardware engines. TeraRecon is a privately held company with headquarters in San Mateo, CA, European headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany, and branch offices in Concord, MA; Tokyo, Japan and Osaka, Japan.