FUJIFILM to interface Raytheon BBN Technologies' SDM technology with its Aspire HD FFDM system

Raytheon BBN Technologies, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN), has licensed its patented, award-winning stereo digital mammography (SDM) technology to FUJIFILM Corp.

FUJIFILM intends to interface the SDM technology with the Aspire HD FFDM system. Combined with SDM technology, the Aspire HD digital mammography system will deliver stereo images for 3-D viewing. FUJIFILM will display the Raytheon BBN Technologies clinical evaluation results at the 2009 Radiological Society of North America annual meeting.

With Raytheon BBN Technologies SDM technology, a radiologist sees the entire breast, providing a direct, intuitive and in-depth, 3-D view of the internal structure, as opposed to current standard methods, which provide only 2-D image slices.

In a 2007 clinical trial at Emory University's Breast Imaging Center in Atlanta, Raytheon BBN Technologies SDM technology showed dramatic improvements in both early detection of suspicious lesions and reductions in false-positive readings compared to standard 2-D mammography. The trial results demonstrated that the SDM technology improves detection of suspicious lesions by more than 20 percent while reducing unnecessary patient recall by almost half.

"SDM is a promising new technology in the fight against breast cancer," said Dr. David Getty, lead scientist at Raytheon BBN Technologies and developer of the SDM system. "The added information provided with SDM has the potential to reduce the number of women who are needlessly called back for further work-up by almost half."

"Stereo digital mammography is an important new tool that could lead to better outcomes for the millions of women who confront a breast cancer diagnosis every year," said Richard Upton, executive vice president, Raytheon BBN Technologies.