AIX-EN-PROVENCE, FRANCE--(Marketwired - May 4, 2017) - SuperSonic Imagine (EURONEXT PARIS: SSI) (FR0010526814), a company specializing in ultrasound medical imaging, announced today that it will showcase its Aixplorer® platform with real-time ShearWave™ Elastography (SWE™) for the assessment and management of liver diseases at Digestive Disease Week (DDW) Annual Meeting 2017, held May 6 - 9 at McCormick Place in Chicago. Accompanying SuperSonic Imagine will be Diversatek Healthcare, the exclusive distributor of Aixplorer® to Gastroenterologists and Hepatologists in the U.S.A. SuperSonic Imagine and Diversatek Healthcare will be exhibiting during DDW 2017 in the Exhibit Hall at booth #1921.

"At SuperSonic Imagine, innovation in liver imaging is a driving passion, so we are thrilled to attend DDW once again and share the clinical benefits of the Aixplorer's SWE technology with specialists from around the world," said Jacques Souquet, Founder and Chief Innovation Officer at SuperSonic Imagine. "With our distribution partner, we are committed to expanding our footprint in the U.S.A., Diversatek Healthcare shares our goal of managing chronic Liver Disease with non invasive diagnostic liver imaging and quantification to assist in diagnosis. At our booth, attendees can see firsthand how SWE technology promises to do just that."

"Our mission is to bring our customers in Gastroenterology and Hepatology the latest technologies to improve patient care," said Stuart Wildhorn, Chief Scientific Officer, Diversatek Healthcare. "The Aixplorer platform with SWE technology truly changes the landscape of liver disease management, making it an excellent fit for our customers and our company. Being able to visualize what you are measuring adds to better patient management."

Real-time ShearWave Elastography (SWE), available only on the Aixplorer system, is a 60-second non-invasive exam used for imaging chronic liver disease. SWE offers the advantage of real-time imaging of liver anatomy, while also providing not only a color-coded map of liver stiffness, but also a quantification tool for the measurement of stiffness which is an important parameter for liver diagnostic. Over 100 peer reviewed publications have demonstrated the reliability and effectiveness of SuperSonic Imagine's SWE in imaging liver pathologies.

Recently, the results of an international multicenter study on 1134 patients were published in Hepatology, and confirmed the benefit of SWE in the non-invasive assessment of liver stiffness1, including for patients with diseases such as hepatitis C that may require repeated follow-up evaluations. Although biopsy has been considered the standard for assessing liver fibrosis severity, the drawbacks of this invasive approach include significant incidence of morbidity, high procedure costs due to longer hospitalisation, and clinical shortcomings. Stiffness is even sometimes underestimated in 10-30% of cases.2,3

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