New & Used Digital Angiography

Tips for buying Digital Angiography

1. When looking into purchasing an angiography imaging system, buyers should select a system that best meets their needs in the areas of resolution, performance characteristics, and clinical applications.
2. To limit contrast resolution that may affect image quality, an SNR of 60 dB is recommended. SNR is the most important requirement for digital angiography systems.
3. It is recommended to use a host camera with a scan mode >1,024 lines and progressive readouts to form the analog image. This will maximize the resolution and image quality of your chosen digital vascular imaging system .
4. When purchasing digital angiography systems, facilities should consider image memory.
5. To increase small details within a processed image, such as tissue densities, the memory depth should range about 10 bits.
6. Some digital angiography systems have optional capabilities, such as edge enhancement, filtering, image zoom, road marking, and land marking.
7. To ensure the transfer from image memory to image storage, a 10-second loop memory is recommended with a bit depth of 10. Digital angiography images should be displayed on a matrix of 1024 × 1024 with 256 accompanying gray levels.
8. DSA affects the contrast resolution and image enhancement.
9. Remote diagnostics is a service feature offered by some manufacturers. A supplier could download a software patch, order replacement parts, or alert a repair technician to fix the problem.
10. The continuous (fluoroscopic) mode obtains images of organs in the midst of rapid movement, while the serial (radiographic) mode obtains images with minimal organ motion; both modes are recommended for use in a cardiovascular digital imaging system.
11. Specialized angiographic and vascular software is offered separately by some manufacturers for expanding the digital subtraction angiography system's analysis capabilities.
12. These angiography imaging systems are often purchased with R/F imaging equipment for use in special procedures or cardiac catheterization suites.
13. Facilities can purchase digital vascular imaging systems as options with their R/F equipment from most major suppliers. There are a few suppliers that market only digital recording and digital angiography systems that are compatible with R/F equipment marketed by other suppliers.
14. Before purchasing a cardiovascular digital imaging system, facilities are encouraged to obtain a list of users from the manufacturer and speak with the experienced ones.
15. Buyers who are planning to connect the digital angiography system with other computer systems in the hospital should also consider networking capabilities and conformance with industry standards.
16. The Open System Interconnect is an international standard for network architectures, which was developed under the guidance of the International Organization for Standardization.
17. An additional feature to consider when purchasing digital angiography is the system’s capability to e-mail images and/or results for remote consultation. This can speed up the review process by specialists or personnel. Medical facilities should consider security of transmission before making a digital subtraction angiography system purchasing decision.