Positron Corporation (POSC)

[ED20332]

Here is a good article on the Attrius from:
http://www.auntminnie.com/index.asp?sec=...

Positron has had its ups and downs, to say the least, over the past decade, but the PET device developer thinks it now has a strategy and product to become a more prominent player in the nuclear medicine market.

Fishers, IN-based Positron is banking on the appeal of Attrius, its PET-only device designed for cardiac imaging at community and rural hospitals as well as cardiology practices.

Attrius and the novel strategy behind it are the brainchild of Positron president Joseph Oliverio and medical director Dr. Michael Merhige. Merhige came from a cardiac group in Buffalo, NY, which began using cardiac PET imaging in an outpatient setting in 1995, around the time Medicare began to reimburse for such scans.

In 2003, the pair was recruited by a community hospital in Niagara County, NY, which had one of the worst coronary disease death rates per county in the U.S. Like many community hospitals in the country, the facility had a difficult time competing against larger tertiary care centers, Oliverio said, and didn't have a unique cardiovascular offering to stop the migration of patients to other facilities, or to attract patients from other hospitals.

With the help of cardiac PET, the facility was successful in reducing the heart attack and cardiac death rate in the county, as well as the number of angiograms that were being performed, by providing a more accurate diagnosis of cardiac disease through PET, Oliverio said.