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NEWS RELEASE:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
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CEDARA SOFTWARE RELEASES CEDARA I-RESPONSE™ WORKSTATION FOR
CANCER THERAPY ASSESSMENT
New offering from the Cedara OncologyWorks™ suite of solutions supports adaptive therapy workflow early in the treatment process
Toronto, ON, July 25, 2007 – Cedara Software, a Merge Healthcare company (NASDAQ: MRGE;TSX: MRG), and a leading medical imaging software and services company, announced the release of the Cedara I-Response application, designed to help evaluate, assess and monitor the effect of cancer therapy over time using data from multiple modalities. In addition to providing tools for the standard anatomical measurements used for tumor assessment in cancer management and research, Cedara I-Response can analyze both PET/CT and MR-based diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI). By providing the ability to visualize changes in tumors resulting from cellular and metabolic mechanisms during the course of treatment, Cedara I-Response provides clinically relevant information that potentially could be used to make mid-treatment therapy adjustments in an attempt to improve clinical outcome.
"As cancer therapies evolve and become more sophisticated and more personalized treatment methods are employed, the tools needed to assess the success of those treatments must also evolve," said Cedara Software president, Loris Sartor. "I-Response addresses this challenge by offering multiple assessment methods in a single application, to accommodate the diverse needs of individual physicians in their quest to optimize treatment."
Cedara I-Response also features patented functional Diffusion Map™ (fDM) technology based on landmark work done at the University of Michigan. This functionality enables physicians to analyze DWI studies to visualize and quantify changes over time in the microscopic motion of water in healthy and diseased tissues. University of Michigan investigators have demonstrated that fDM can identify brain tumor patients who are responding to radiation (plus adjuvant chemotherapy in some cases) after only three weeks of treatment, more than two months earlier than conventional methods. "I-Response could provide a standardized avenue for individualized early treatment response monitoring in oncology patients," said Brian Ross, Ph.D., co-director of the molecular imaging program at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, and professor of radiology and biological chemistry.
The results of each analysis are included in automatically generated reports, as well as exporting the results to file for import into a site’s existing data repositories. I-Response is available to OEMs as a standalone workstation, it also can be tightly integrated into existing PACS solutions using Cedara’s unique C4™ integration platform.*
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* The C4 enabled version of I-Response is a work-in-progress.
Cedara Software is a Merge Healthcare company focused on the development of customized software solutions and development tools for the medical imaging OEM market. Cedara’s solutions enable OEM companies to accelerate their time-to-market, reduce development costs and access new streams of revenue. Cedara’s software is deployed in hospitals and clinics worldwide and is licensed by many of the world's leading medical device and healthcare information technology companies. Cedara’s technologies and engineering services span all the major digital imaging modalities and a wide variety of clinical specialties including radiology, orthopaedics, women’s health, oncology, cardiac imaging, clinical trials, imaging for the veterinarian market and more. For additional information, visit our website at www.cedara.com .
Merge Healthcare is a leading medical imaging software and services company. Our innovative software solutions use leading-edge imaging software technologies that accelerate market delivery for our OEM customers, while our end-user solutions improve our customers' productivity and enhance the quality of patient care they provide. For additional information, visit our website at www.mergehealthcare.com.
All trademarks appearing in this release are the property of Cedara Software Corp. and/or Merge Healthcare.
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Attn: Beth Frost-Johnson
Merge Healthcare
6737 West Washington St.
Suite 2250
Milwaukee, WI 53214
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| Except for the historical information herein, the matters discussed in this news release include forward-looking statements that may involve a number of risks and uncertainties. When used in this press release, the words “will,” “believes,” “intends,” “anticipates,” “expects” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, the forward-looking statements based on a number of factors, including, but not limited to, the uncertainty created by, the adverse impact on relationships with customers, potential customers, suppliers and investors potentially resulting from, and other risks associated with, the changes in the Company’s senior management; costs, risks and effects of the investigation by the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors; the impact of the restatement of financial statements of the Company and other actions that may be taken or required as a result of such restatement; the Company's inability to timely file reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission; risks associated with the Company's inability to meet the requirements of The NASDAQ Stock Market for continued listing, including possible delisting; costs, risks and effects of legal proceedings and investigations, including the informal, non-public inquiry being conducted by the Securities and Exchange Commission and class action, derivative, and other lawsuits; risks in product and technology development, market acceptance of new products and continuing product demand, the impact of competitive products and pricing, ability to integrate acquisitions, changing economic conditions, credit and payment risks associated with end-user sales, dependence on major customers, dependence on key personnel, and other risk factors detailed in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as expressly required by the federal securities laws, the Company undertakes no obligation to update such factors or to publicly announce the results of any of the forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect future events, developments, or changed circumstances, or for any other reason.
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