IPL Announces First Ever Sealed-Source. Multimodal Marker For Fusion Imaging in Nuclear Medicine

New Product Delivers Greater Precision, Longer Half Life and Improved Productivity with CT-PET and CT-SPECT Scans

Valencia, California, November 22, 2002. Isotope Products Laboratories (IPL), a leader in nuclear medicine products and subsidiary of Eckert & Ziegler AG (WKN 565 970) today announced the availability of the first ever multimodal marker in a sealed source, enabling physicians, researchers and radiology technicians to do quantitative scanning with multiple and different detectors, then merge and view the images with unprecedented accuracy. The IPL sealed-source multimodal marker solves a major issue in the growing nuclear medicine specialty of fusion imaging. The company's breakthrough patent-pending product enables users to accurately align their images when comparing images from x-ray, CT (computer tomography), PET (positron emission tomography) and SPECT (single positron emission computed tomography) scanners. As a result, physicians are better able to diagnose, manage, treat and prevent serious disease.

In nuclear medicine, the need to merge different scanned images has become imperative. PET and SPECT scans offer valuable information on function, such as tumor location, metabolic activity or blood flow but information on structure is inadequate. Conversely, CT and MRI scans offer useful information on internal body structure, but it can be difficult to distinguish tumors from scar tissue or similar problems when viewing these scans. The University of Virginia has been a beta site for the IPL marker since September. According to Dr. Mark Williams, associate professor of radiology, physics and biomedical engineering at the university, "IPL's multimodal spot marker is just another example of their commitment to creating flexible and creative solutions for the multimodal community."

Generally, markers are fillable sources that use radionuclides with short half-lives, which is the amount of time for radioactivity to decay by one-half. But IPL's new marker is reusable and presented as a sealed source, thus eliminating the need for filling, mixing or assembly and has a useful life of up to two years. Radiology and nuclear medicine units in hospitals, clinics or research laboratories can now reduce the time and expense required to fill and refill sources, and, at the same time, upgrade overall productivity.

The Board of Directors