Worldwide, five percent of all people over the age of 65 suffer from atrial fibrillation. While cardiac arrhythmia can be treated with medication, patients have to take it for the rest of their lives. Ablation therapy offers an alternative: myocardial cells in the left atrium are obliterated to interrupt the problematic pathway. However, every patient is different. For this reason, electro physiologists have to be able to discern the size and shape of the left ventricle in precise detail during the intervention.

Convera Corporation (NASDAQ: CNVR), a leading provider of search technologies for publishers, announced the launch of SearchMedica France. The specialized search engine, built for doctors in France, was developed by CMPMedica, Convera and medical experts from Le Quotidien du Médecin, a popular daily medical journal published by CMPMedica. CMPMedica, a division of UBM plc, is a global provider of healthcare information and education.

SQLI Groupe, the leading provider of identity management services in healthcare in France, and Initiate Systems, Inc., the leading provider of enterprise master person index (EMPI) software for organisations that want to create complete views of patient information from data dispersed across multiple facilities, today announced a strategic agreement in principle to introduce best of breed, industry-strength patient identification and matching solutions to the French healthcare market.

CSW Group has signed an OEM agreement with Visbion Ltd, whereby Visbion's DICOM imaging technology will be incorporated into CSW's Case Notes product for Electronic Health Records and sold as its new Diagnostic Image Management and Diagnostic Image Viewer modules.

The USB Implementers Forum, Inc. (USB-IF) announced the formation of the Personal Healthcare Device Working Group. The group's initial goal is to define a USB Personal Healthcare Device Class specification. The new specification will enable health-related devices, such as blood pressure cuffs and exercise watches, to connect via USB to consumer electronic products, such as PCs and health appliances.

In what could prove to be a turning point in diagnosis and therapy for millions of patients suffering from neurological diseases, stroke and cancer, Siemens Medical Solutions showed a prototype for the world’s first fully-functioning imaging system capable of performing simultaneously Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Positron Emission Tomography (PET). Testing of this new prototype MR-PET will start before the end of 2007.

Telemedicine Clinic, the leading European provider of radiology reporting services, has been awarded a large contract with the UK public healthcare system for PET/CT reporting services. PET/CT is a new and very advanced radiology examination to detect cancer.

With this contract, Telemedicine Clinic will be the largest PET/CT centre in Europe. Thanks to high case volumes, it will be possible to build up a sub specialised reporting solution with very skilled medical experts.