SonoSite Expands S-Series to Anaesthesia

SONOSITE INTRODUCES REVOLUTIONARY VISUALISATION TOOL FOR ANAESTHESIOLOGISTS

SonoSite Expands S-Series to Anaesthesia

S-Nerve™ Offers Specialised Ultrasound Design for Anaesthesiologists

New Product Unveiled at American Society of Anaesthesiologists’ Meeting

Sydney Australia, October 17, 2007 - SonoSite, Inc. (Nasdaq:SONO), the world leader in hand-carried ultrasound, today introduced the S-Nerve procedural tool, the first ultrasound device custom-designed to support the specific needs of anaesthetists who perform regional anaesthesia.

SonoSite is showcasing the new S-Nerve product at the American Society of Anaesthesiologists’ (ASA) annual meeting in San Francisco and expects to begin customer shipments in the fourth quarter of this year.

The S-Nerve visualisation tool is built to help regional anaesthesiologists perform nerve block procedures in crowded, busy operating environments as well as anywhere in the hospital. Its breakthrough image quality, speed and simplicity were designed with input from leading practitioners who expressed a substantive need for a small, high-performance tool, designed to function exclusively as a guidance tool for regional nerve blocks and central line placement. Like the S-FAST™ ultrasound tool that SonoSite recently introduced for emergency medicine, the S-Nerve device is a radical new concept in ultrasound unlike anything else in the marketplace and offers the option of a zero footprint.

Adoption of point-of-care visualisation has grown steadily in the practice of regional anaesthesiology. A growing body of clinical evidence demonstrates that ultrasound guidance can significantly reduce the time for accurately performing peripheral nerve blocks and placement of catheters. Clinicians who have integrated hand-carried ultrasound into their medical practice credit the technology with faster, more accurate needle and catheter placement, confirmation of anaesthesia spread, clear visualisation of hard to reach or compromised structures, and heightened patient satisfaction.

SonoSite Australasia’s Managing Director, Matt Tucker said, “Application-specific tools underscore our understanding of the clinician’s specific needs, and our commitment to providing devices that can meet those needs, that can withstand hard use, and can appear and disappear from the physician’s view as needed. We set out to build application specific devices that raise the standard of care in their respective specialisations, and we are confident that their performance and extreme ease of use will recast the role of visualisation across the clinical spectrum,” said Mr Tucker.

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Customised for the Precise Needs of the Anaesthesiologist
To create this radically new visualisation tool, SonoSite designed a user interface, software and controls that address the procedural needs of the anaesthetist combined with the same ground breaking processing power, image quality and data management features of the recently introduced M-Turbo™ system. The M-Turbo system is 16 times more powerful than SonoSite’s industry leading MicroMaxx® system.

Peerless processing power enables the simultaneous deployment of SonoSite’s three new, advanced proprietary algorithms, SonoADAPT™, SonoHD™, and SonoMB™. Together these three technologies produce dramatic improvements in image quality.

With the S-Nerve tool, anesthetists get breakthrough image quality from a device that can acquire the optimal image of hard-to-reach nerve structures with just two dials. The S-Nerve features a standard VESA® compliant mounting interface, a new concept for an ultrasound tool. Attached to the operating theater or block room wall or ceiling, the device has zero footprint, a critical benefit in such crowded environments. Mounted on an IV pole or hand-carried to the patient point-of-care, the S-Nerve tool can easily be moved from patient to patient in a busy pre-operative center.

SonoSite is introducing the S-Nerve device with an unprecedented combination of several curved and linear array transducers for virtually every anatomical and clinical anaesthesia application. The unmatched breadth of transducers allows the anaesthesiologist to perform the most difficult upper and lower extremity blocks as well as confidently place intravascular lines in the desired vessels. The transducers, like the S-Nerve, are designed specifically to withstand the demanding environment of the operating room or nerve block suite. They are also interchangeable with the new M-Turbo system and the new image optimisation algorithms are available on all S-Nerve transducers and exam types.

Streamlined Image Transfer and Review

To provide a flexible solution for playback and easy image transfer, SonoSite engineers built the S-Nerve tool with Microsoft’s Windows Embedded CE 6.0 operating system running on Texas Instrument’s TMS320DM664x digital media processor with DaVinci™ technology, which is designed specifically for high performing, highly responsive digital video applications. Clinicians can efficiently export images to a USB storage device in standard PC formats for review or storage on PC or Mac® computers for publishing, patient records and instruction.

SonoSite is leveraging these new multi-media and connectivity capabilities to offer S-Nerve and M-Turbo customers the Education Key™ program-a library of clinically specific, point-of-care tutorials, reference images and refresher courses on a USB thumb drive for playback on the system. This combination of instructionally rich learning tools is an industry first and underscores SonoSite’s commitment to clinical users.

Uniquely Designed for Point-of-Care

As well as these advancements incorporated from the M-Turbo system, the S-Nerve device includes many key system reliability and durability features needed to withstand heavy use in a demanding medical environment, and for which SonoSite hand-carried ultrasound systems and tools are widely known and highly valued. The S-Nerve boots within 15 seconds, weighs only 3.8 kilograms (including an on-board docking station) and is battery operable. Its sealed interface is easy to clean and sanitise, of utmost importance in acute care environments.

The S-Nerve product withstands SonoSite’s industry-leading 0.9 meter drop test – its design relies mainly on extremely durable but light-weight magnesium components -- and carries the same, unprecedented 5-year warranty that SonoSite introduced with the launch of the MicroMaxx system in 2005, and continues with the M-Turbo system.

About SonoSite

SonoSite, Inc. (www.sonosite.com) is the innovator and world leader in hand-carried ultrasound. Headquartered near Seattle, Washington, USA, the company is represented by nine subsidiaries and a global distribution network in over 90 countries. SonoSite's small, lightweight systems are expanding the use of ultrasound across the clinical spectrum by cost-effectively bringing high performance ultrasound to the point of patient care. The company employs over 550 people worldwide.

SonoSite Australasia, a direct subsidiary of SonoSite Inc., was incorporated in July 2005 to enhance the commercial roll-out of SonoSite’s products into the Australasian market. The Company provides education, support to network sites in Australia and New Zealand. SonoSite Australasia’s education partners include University of Melbourne, University of Auckland and the Australian Institute of Ultrasound.

For more information please contact:
SonoSite Australasia Pty. Ltd.

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