CX50

Big system performance in a compact size

The CX50 system and its transducers support a wide range of exams, including abdominal, vascular, small parts, musculoskeletal, breast, obstetrics, gynecology, pediatrics, and adult cardiology. Freehand 3D, 2D, and Philips gold standard Doppler cover a broad spectrum of imaging requirements. Comprehensive analysis packages and QLAB quantification plug-ins streamline workflow for portable studies.

Premium capabilities

Clinically proven features have been migrated from the iU22 xMATRIX premium system to the CX50 offering a powerful tool to help you deliver your patient care.

• PureWave transducers – provide the ability to image a wide range of patients with one transducer. You can rely on exceptional tissue detail and clarity for your portable studies, including your technically difficult patients. PureWave is supported on curved and sector transducers.
• SonoCT imaging – compounds multiple angles, in real time, into one image with extraordinary structural clarity. No special maneuvers or techniques are needed when scanning so it's easy to have excellent images from portable studies.
• Advanced XRES – works in tandem with SonoCT, further refining image quality with exceptional tissue differentiation.

Breakthrough workflow solutions

The CX50 system has workflow tools that help you make the most of its premium imaging.

• SmartExam system guided protocols – easy to use and customize to fit your requirements. Save time, reduce repeated moves, and increase efficiency and consistency of exams.
• iSCAN one-button optimization – quickly and automatically adjusts system parameters in both 2D and Doppler modes based on patient and exam types. Fewer keystrokes are needed and you can keep your focus on the patient.
• Active native data – adjust virtually all imaging parameters on stills and clips of 2D and Doppler data during or after exams, enhancing diagnostic details, shortening exam time, and reducing the need to repeat studies.
• Wireless and wired DICOM connectivity – allow flexibility for data management based on your facility's setup.
• Multiport adaptor – allows up to three imaging transducers to be connected to the system, so you can easily switch transducers mid-exam.
• QLAB quantification – provides you with advanced analysis capabilities with plug-ins for 3D Quantification, including iSlice views (GI 3DQ), Region of Interest (ROI), Intima Media Thickness evaluation (IMT) and MicroVascular imaging (MVI). Tissue Motion Quantification (TMQ) and Strain Quantification (SQ) are supported for cardiac studies.

Premium performance on the go

With the CX50, you can capture clear diagnostic data where definitive information is most critical – in acute care units and at patient bedsides. You can also support satellite clinics and rural visits with premium ultrasound. Battery operation, ''instant on'', and portability options make the CX50 an ideal solution for quick responses where performance counts.

QLAB provides automated and objective methods for quantifying ultrasound data.

• Review and quantification of Philips ultrasound systems image files
• Graphic image file creation in BMP, TIF, JPG and AVI formats
• Remove patient information from QLAB screens and prior to exporting new files
• Exportation of quantification results data into Excel compatible spreadsheet format
• Upgradeable with add-on plug-ins at any time to expand your capabilities from the existing options, or add new ones as they become available
• Compatible with Philips ultrasound image formats*
• Quick and easy access to clinical files and results
• Built-in online help feature in eleven languages

Who will benefit from QLAB?

• Clinicians interested in off-cart cardiac viewing, rendering and advanced quantification in 2D and 3D imaging modes
• Clinicians interested in advanced image analysis tools, such as tissue analysis, and color and power Doppler quantification
• Cardiology ultrasound clinicians doing contrast studies
• Clinicians interested in assessing the intima media thickness of peripheral vascular structures, such as the carotid arteries
• Clinicians desiring to create graphic files for presentation purposes
• Clinicians interested in viewing, manipulating and measuring 3D data sets

SonoCT and XRES technologies – proven clinical results

XRES Adaptive Image Processing provides real-time image enhancement using proprietary contextural algorithms that reduce speckle, haze and clutter artifacts. At the same time, XRES enhances edges by correcting discontinuities between textured regions allowing improved visualization of real tissue information. Developed by Philips from MR research, this technology was based on years of extensive research on how humans perceive tissue patterns. XRES imaging is a true adaptive image-processing technique using an amazing 350 million calculations per frame of data. The appropriate processing sub-functions are constantly adapting for each pixel of the frame, for each frame in time. The result is images virtually free from noise, with extraordinary clarity and border definition.

When XRES is combined with SonoCT, these extraordinary technologies enhance even the subtlest diagnostic features, helping to overcome common challenges in evaluating tissue and defining pathology, while making it even easier to achieve higher clinical accuracy and productivity gains. Clinician users at all levels of experience will find nearly the same levels of clinical clarity in their images using SonoCT and XRES.

Major XRES benefits include:

• Enhanced tissue subtleties
• Increased diagnostic confidence
• Efficient patient throughput

Transducer technology for the whole body

The piezoelectric material in an ultrasound transducer is a fundamental determinant of system image quality. However, despite many innovations in signal processing and beamformer architecture over recent decades, the same piezoelectric material – PZT (lead-zirconatetitanate) ceramics or PZT-composites – has been used for medical imaging for more than 40 years. The typical ceramic material achieves 70% polarization.

That changed with Philips' development of PureWave crystal technology, a new transducer technology using piezocrystals that exhibit a quantum improvement in electromechanical coupling and strain levels. Compared to PZT ceramics, PureWave crystals are purer, more uniform, have lower losses, and are able to transfer energy with greater precision and efficiency.

Conventional PZT ceramics (as shown on the left above) are made up of randomly oriented grains, while PureWave crystals (shown at the right above), have a virtually perfect atomic level arrangement and uniform consistency throughout the material.

With PureWave crystals, fine ceramic powder is formed using a process similar to PZT powders. The powder is melted into a liquid at 1400º C. A seed crystal is pulled away from the melting zone and the crystal is enlarged layer by layer to form a homogeneous crystal boule. The boule is sliced into wafers and polarized prior to slicing into imaging elements.

To create an overall piezoelectric effect, materials such as PZT ceramics must be subjected to a poling process where an external electric field is applied to align dipoles within the polycrystalline material. In conventional PZT ceramics, only a fraction of the dipoles can be aligned by electric fields, and not all dipoles contribute to the acoustic response of the material. PureWave crystals are more uniform with fewer defects, lower losses and no grain boundaries. When PureWave crystals are poled, nearly perfect alignment of dipoles can be achieved, resulting in dramatically enhanced electromechanical properties.

By combining PureWave crystal technology with precisely engineered matching layers and backing material, it is now possible to provide frequency coverage from a single transducer that was previously only attainable from two transducers. This new class of piezoelectric crystals significantly improves efficiency in bandwidth compared with conventional PZT ceramics, and results in images of remarkable clarity and detail with greater uniformity throughout the entire sector.

PureWave crystal technology also supports advanced harmonics. Due to the extraordinary bandwidth of these arrays, multiple harmonic frequencies can be utilized providing breakthroughs in resolution and artifact reduction while maintaining superb penetration.

PureWave benefits:

• Highly accurate anatomical data
• Increased diagnostic confidence
• Increased productivity

DICOM Conformance Statements for Philips Healthcare ultrasound products and the former Marconi, Agilent, ADAC and ATL products, plus Philips DICOM Validation Tool.

IHE Integration Statements outlining the intended conformance of Philips Healthcare ultrasound products with the IHE Technical Framework.