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Medicsight PLC

('Medicsight' or 'the Company')

 CMS Decision - No material financial impact to Medicsight

Medicsight PLC (AIM: MDST), an industry leader in the development of Computer-Aided Detection (CAD) and image analysis software which assists radiologists in the early detection of disease, comments on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' (CMS) decision not to reimburse virtual colonoscopy (CT colonography or CTC) for the routine colon cancer screening of Medicare patients in the U.S.  

The CMS decision has no material financial impact to Medicsight and only affects 12% of the eligible screening population in the United States. CTC continues to be reimbursed by Medicare for diagnostic procedures under certain conditions. Furthermore, a significant number (over 50 million) of the eligible screening population will have private insurance coverage that is likely 
to provide for CTC screening. Despite Medicare's decision, 28 US States (and growing) currently mandate coverage for colorectal cancer screening, most adopting the American Cancer Society (ACS) standards which include use of CTC.

A number of private payers have already started to offer CTC as a 'covered benefit' in their insurance policies and those payers, including Wellpoint/Anthem, Cigna and several Blue Cross Blue Shield plans, representing approximately 50 million covered patients. There are projected to be 65 million U.S. residents aged between 50-64 by 2015. Currently 80% of this age group currently has private insurance coverage according to Kaiser Permanente, a leading US health insurance provider.

Allan Rowley, Chief Executive Officer of Medicsight, commented: 'The Company is excited about the enormous potential to improve colorectal screening compliance with the use of screening CTC and has already begun working with various groups to support coverage among non-Medicare payers.'

Perry J. Pickhardt, MD., Associate Professor of Radiology at University of Wisconsin, suggested: 'To deny coverage for Medicare beneficiaries of a potentially life-saving test that is better, safer, more convenient, and less costly than invasive colonoscopy is clearly a misguided decision that should ultimately be reversed by legislative correction' 

Following the CMS decision, Congresswoman Kay Granger (R-Texas), commented, 'There is clear evidence that when insurance reimbursement is available for virtual colonoscopies, more people are screened for colorectal cancer. Less than half of those who should be screened receive a colonoscopy. We need to make sure more Americans are screened for this deadly yet preventable disease.' (1)

⁽¹⁾        WASHINGTON, D.C., May 12 2009 kaygranger.house.gov

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Medicsight PLC is a UK-headquartered, research driven, leading developer of computer-aided detection (CAD) and image analysis software for the medical imaging market. The CAD software automatically highlights suspicious areas on computerised tomography (CT) scans of the colon and lung, helping radiologists to identify, measure and analyse potential disease and early indicators of disease. Medicsight's CAD software has been validated using one of the world's largest and most population diverse databases of verified patient CT scan data. Medicsight's ColonCAD™ and LungCAD™ software products are seamlessly integrated with the advanced 3D visualisation workstations of several industry-leading imaging equipment partners.

About Computer-Aided Detection

With increasingly sophisticated radiological imaging hardware such as Multi-Detector CT scanners, radiologists are facing a growing challenge in the amount of detailed patient image data that they must review for each patient examination. Some CT scan examinations generate as many as 2000 images per patient. Review of this data by the radiologist is not only time-consuming but also prone to error due to reader fatigue. CAD software can help the reviewing radiologist by analysing the image data and automatically highlighting suspicious regions of interest for closer inspection. Without CAD software some potential abnormalities or areas of disease may be overlooked. This can be critical for diagnosis and the management of patient outcomes as early detection of disease greatly increases the probability of successful treatment and a positive therapeutic outcome. In addition to supporting individual radiologists CAD also has the potential to help standardise CT interpretation across both individuals and institutions thereby supporting population based screening programmes.

About Medicsight's CAD software

Medicsight's ColonCAD™ and LungCAD™ software use an advanced CAD algorithm to analyse CT scans of the colon and lung and automatically highlight suspicious areas that may be indicators of disease. CAD may highlight areas easily overlooked by the reviewing radiologist, such as small lesions or regions that are hidden from view behind folds in the colon or normal structures and surrounding tissue in the lung.

Both CAD products seamlessly integrate with the advanced 3D visualisation platforms of industry-leading imaging equipment partners. The integrated systems provide sophisticated image viewing capabilities, including 3D reconstructed image data, with the added advantage of demonstrating automatic CAD findings to assist clinical end users in the detection and analysis of disease. This allows clinical end users to perform either a 'second read', where CAD findings are displayed to the user after completion of an initial review of the CT scan data, or a 'concurrent read' where CAD findings are displayed during the user's initial review of the original CT scan images.

Since inception, Medicsight has developed close and lasting relationships with some of the world's foremost clinicians in product related areas. This provides the Company with a wealth of clinical expertise and dedicated clinical research to support ongoing product development. Medicsight also collaborates with a number of leading academic institutions and clinical research programmes worldwide to develop the Company's comprehensive database of population diverse verified patient CT scan data, thus allowing Medicsight's products to be validated to the highest possible standards.