GE Healthcare Launches LOGIQ™ E20 in China with Dual-Engine Technology, Ushering in an Era of Intelligent Whole-Body Ultrasound

Today’s Imaging Systems, Tomorrow’s Intelligent Terminals.

GE Healthcare Unveils Flagship LOGIQ™ E20 Whole-Body Ultrasound System in ChinaOn September 8, GE Healthcare officially launched its flagship whole-body ultrasound system, the LOGIQ™ E20, in China. Equipped with dual technologies—the cSound+™ Holographic Domain Imaging Engine and the A to A “Zhi·Xing” Digital Engine—the system delivers iterative upgrades in image quality, workflow efficiency, AI-powered big data analytics, and intelligent connectivity, ushering in a new era of intelligence for whole-body ultrasound.

GE Healthcare, a subsidiary of GE (General Electric), began its operations in China in 1979 and established its first office in Beijing in 1986. The company has a presence in multiple fields, including medical imaging, software and information technology, patient monitoring and diagnostics, drug development, biopharmaceutical technology, and operational solutions, with large-scale imaging equipment as its core focus.

Product Upgrade: cSound+™ and A to A “Dual-Engine” Drive

Due to its non-invasive, non-interventional, real-time, user-friendly, and widely applicable characteristics, ultrasound diagnostic equipment has become the mainstream medical imaging modality, playing an irreplaceable role in clinical applications. Physicians, drawing on their clinical experience, expect new products to offer ever-higher image resolution, deeper penetration, simpler operation, smarter workflows, and reduced workload.

In conventional ultrasound imaging, the main characteristics are limited information, line-by-line scanning, and fixed focusing. It is understood that previous ultrasound systems primarily employed beamformers for stitched-line imaging, providing very limited information. Furthermore, interpolation processing between scan lines and focus dependency significantly affected frame rate, image resolution, and uniformity. In contrast, the cSound+™ image generator equipped in the LOGIQ™ E20, recently released by GE, achieves a 48-fold increase in high-speed caching capacity and a tenfold breakthrough in computing power, providing technical support for big data capture and analysis as well as holographic domain imaging. cSound+™ is a core technology independently developed by GE, built upon the earlier cSound platform.

Specifically, in terms of performance, this engine integrates two innovative technologies: TCI (Total Clarity Imaging) and ACE (Advanced Contrast Enhancement), achieving a threefold increase in frame rate, a 20% improvement in penetration, and a 30-fold increase in information acquisition. In terms of imaging, the engine enables devices to overcome focal limitations, enhancing resolution and penetration to deliver clearer and more detailed images. For instance, due to its high sensitivity to extremely slow, micro-vascular blood flow and superior spatial resolution, the engine effectively supports MicroVascular Imaging (MVI), providing an imaging foundation for the diagnosis of minute pathologies. It also represents an upgrade and innovation over previous generations in dual-mode contrast-enhanced ultrasound, composite shear wave elastography, and volume navigation imaging. Regarding application scenarios, the deployment of cSound+™ not only supports precise clinical diagnosis across various fields—including interventional procedures, thyroid and breast imaging, musculoskeletal, pediatrics, and cardiology—but also yields data that will hold greater value for clinical research into more subtle diseases.

Furthermore, given that the prevalence and mortality rates of cardiovascular disease in China are on a continuous rise, the newly introduced cSound+™ platform enhances signal transmission and reception, delivering superior cardiac performance through newly upgraded high sensitivity and lateral resolution. In addition, the LOGIQ™ E20 is equipped with GE Healthcare’s first “linear array ice-crystal all-in-one probe L2-9,” ensuring improved bandwidth, penetration, and resolution.

Over the past three decades, medical ultrasound diagnostic technology has undergone successive revolutionary leaps. In the 1980s, interventional ultrasound gradually became widespread, while the 1990s saw further advancements with the advent of intravascular ultrasound, three-dimensional imaging, and the application of novel acoustic contrast agents, elevating ultrasound diagnostics to a new level. However, for ultrasound diagnosis, the extensive range of scanning sites and the massive volume of dynamic image data have consistently placed significant pressure on physicians. Coupled with the year-on-year increase in outpatient visits, clinical departments are imposing increasingly higher demands on the information acquisition, collaboration, and data processing capabilities of ultrasound equipment.

Powered by the A to A “Zhi·Xing” digital engine, the LOGIQ™ E20 not only enables resource sharing and interoperability with mobile devices but also facilitates intelligent identification of minute lesions with AI assistance, helping physicians enhance clinical diagnostic and therapeutic efficiency. In terms of data integration and connectivity, the system seamlessly connects with mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets to capture multimodal data—including body surface images, patient positioning information, and pathological imaging data—in real time at high speeds. It further supports information exchange, cloud-based storage, centralized comprehensive management, and instant access, thereby achieving a zero-wait workflow. Regarding AI-assisted intelligent recognition, the A to A “Zhi·Xing” digital engine leverages image perception to enable tissue and organ structure differentiation, intelligent lesion segmentation, and automated measurements. This helps physicians eliminate tedious and complex image optimization and measurement tasks, allowing them to concentrate fully on clinical diagnosis and treatment.

The “dual-engine” strategy has driven the innovative upgrade of GE Healthcare’s whole-body ultrasound systems. Regarding whether the launch of new products would cannibalize existing ones, Ma Haiyan, General Manager of the Ultrasound Product Division at GE Healthcare China, stated that GE Healthcare has always proactively promoted product iteration and innovation, introducing newer and better technologies into clinical practice. This approach enables technology to cascade from high-end to mid-range and then to entry-level segments, allowing a broader population to access these solutions more easily and efficiently.

Not Just an Imaging System, but a Smart Terminal

Amid the accelerating trend of population aging and the rising incidence of major diseases, clinical demands for examination quality and coverage have become increasingly stringent. Due to uneven distribution of medical resources and a shortage of ultrasound professionals, healthcare institutions urgently need intelligent expansion of equipment capabilities to enhance diagnostic efficiency and precision.

“The advent of dual-engine ultrasound systems represents not only an innovation in imaging but, more importantly, the integration of artificial intelligence (AI). AI not only liberates productivity and enhances efficiency but, crucially, compensates for human limitations in image recognition and diagnosis. Thus, this technology is driving the development of ultrasound medicine, bringing about a technological revolution in addressing clinical challenges and meeting patient concerns,” pointed out He Wen, President of the Ultrasound Branch of the Chinese Medical Doctor Association and Chair of the Department of Ultrasound Medicine at Capital Medical University. “The primary issue to be addressed now is the suboptimal diagnostic proficiency in primary care hospitals and among young physicians. The introduction of AI technology will significantly enhance the diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities of primary care institutions.”

As for the current issue of insufficient purchasing power for such high-end equipment among primary care hospitals, He Wen believes that in the future, primary care hospitals lacking such capacity can establish connections with large hospitals through medical consortia. By transmitting images via 5G technology to these larger institutions and facilitating image sharing, they can enhance regional healthcare standards and help alleviate the difficulties and high costs associated with accessing medical care.

From the manufacturer’s perspective, Ma Xiaoyan stated that GE ultrasound represents a typical specialized segment within GE Healthcare. While different product categories undergo upgrades to their technology platforms or versions annually, overall technical performance continues to improve, with prices remaining stable.

“The launch of the new LOGIQ™ E20 dual-engine ultrasound represents GE Healthcare’s commitment to advancing precision medicine, driven by deep insights into the clinical needs of Chinese physicians, leveraging big data analytics, and enhancing high-resolution imaging with intelligent system capabilities,” said Ma Haiyan. “In fact, the E9 model from this series was launched in late 2016, with an initial installed base of 2,000 units. Over the past three years, the total installed base has doubled to 4,000 units. We are confident that the E20 will achieve the next milestone of 2,000 additional units in an even shorter timeframe.”