Aurora Imaging Technology Announces the Installation of Its First Clinical 1.5T Dedicated Breast MRI System with Bilateral RODEO at Knoxville Comprehensive Breast Center.

Business Editors/Health/Medical Writers

NORTH ANDOVER, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 22, 2004

Aurora Imaging Technology, Inc. (www.auroramri.com) completed the first clinical installation of its 1.5T Dedicated Breast MRI System with bilateral RODEO(R) (Rotating Delivery of Excitation Off-resonance) imaging technique at Knoxville Comprehensive Breast Center. RODEO is a proprietary pulse sequence that provides robust fat-suppressed, magnetization transfer contrast in an efficient high-resolution MR image acquisition. Magnetization transfer contrast is used to reduce signal from normal ductal tissue and avoid false positive enhancement from benign lesions and dense fibro glandular tissue that is particularly common in young women. Applying the RODEO fat-suppression technique in breast MRI after contrast injection enables physicians to focus on diseases affecting ductal or glandular tissue without the distraction of fat tissue and avoids the "snowman in a snowstorm" effect where fat and cancer are both bright on the MR image. Aurora received FDA 510(k) clearance of its RODEO imaging technique in September 2003.

Dr. Kamilia Koslowski, Medical Director of the Knoxville Comprehensive Breast Center "Breast MRI imaging has just taken a new leap forward with the Aurora 1.5T with RODEO Technique. Aurora has done what was thought to be impossible: Provide RODEO MRI imaging of both breasts simultaneously with improved resolution utilizing a 1.5T magnet. There is no compromise in image resolution. Breast cancer has nowhere to hide anymore. The Knoxville Comprehensive Breast Center is pleased to be the first clinical site in the nation to experience enhanced breast MRI resolution with the 1.5T with RODEO imaging technique."

"The installation of the first commercial Aurora 1.5T system with RODEO at Knoxville is a major milestone for breast imaging. The RODEO technique that is considered the standard of quality for breast MRI is now commercially available in a package designed for clinical breast centers," added Dr. Steven Harms, Aurora's Medical Director and one of the developers of RODEO. "The Aurora product provides a unique combination of bilateral RODEO and integrated biopsy/intervention with breast patient friendly ergonomics."

MRI is a more definitive tool in the continuum of care to detect and diagnose breast cancer. The Aurora Dedicated Breast MRI System is the only fully integrated MRI system designed specifically and only to image the breast and optimized for breast imaging and interventional procedures. Some of the proprietary and distinguishing features of the Aurora System include: a unique shimming of the magnet that changes the area of image uniformity to an ellipsoid providing the possibility of full image coverage of the breasts, the chest wall and out into the lymph nodes or axilla; a specially designed gradient coil with very high linearity or accuracy to meet the specific requirements of breast imaging; a patient-handling table that provides comfort for the patient and procedural utility; a fully integrated interventional system for MRI guidance of biopsies and interventional therapy; and a computer aided image review system or physician's workstation designed to improve the accuracy and efficiency of radiologic interpretations. Aurora offers a complete solution for breast MRI and MRI-guided interventional procedures. The Aurora System is designed to be located within the breast care center where it is readily available to specialized physicians and their patients.

As a diagnostic tool, the Aurora System is ideal for a wide range of applications in breast disease management including: characterizing lesions, detecting occult cancer, determining the extent of cancer, monitoring cancer therapy, evaluating the extent of cancer, evaluating patients with positive surgical margins for residual cancer, excluding the existence of cancer in high risk women and evaluating implant integrity and detecting cancer in women with breast augmentation.

About Aurora

Aurora Imaging Technology, Inc. (www.auroramri.com) is a private company based in North Andover, MA committed to expanding the fight against breast cancer by advancing MRI of the breast for the earliest possible detection and, as a result, the most timely and effective treatment. As the developer and manufacturer of the Aurora Dedicated Breast MRI System, the only commercially available MRI system designed specifically and only to image the breast, we are committed to the manufacture of the highest quality, most cost-effective breast MRI solutions in partnership with the nation's finest breast care centers to provide the ultimate in the diagnosis, biopsy and treatment of breast cancer. The Aurora System is in clinical use at a growing number of leading breast care centers.