After three decades of building his credibility through various leadership positions in the high-tech world of imaging, Pierre Lemire, a technology commercialization expert, joined Kent Imaging (Kent), which was founded by a serial entrepreneur, Don Chapman. At the helm as the CEO, Lemire boasts a keen interest in technology and perfectly complements Chapman’s penchant for innovation to deliver exceptional value. While the field of medical imaging has been a fixer-upper’s dream, Chapman, Lemire and their team at Kent Imaging are up for the challenge. Guiding Kent Imaging’s corporate strategy and vision, Lemire has seized the opportunity to deliver breakthrough near infrared multispectral imaging solutions that assess tissue oxygen saturation, a key indicator of tissue health. The company successfully made a giant stride in tissue oxygenation imaging by devising a completely non-invasive, low-cost and easy-to-use imaging device that eliminates the need for patient contact or injectable dyes required by other technologies.

“In the past, wound care professionals relied on their visual assessment to gauge the condition of a wound. Touching the wound can contaminate it and make things worse. With our non-invasive imaging, one can instantly capture diagnostic insight into the availability of oxygenated blood in tissue within and around the wound. The same applies in the area of plastic surgery. One can take an oxygenation image of tissue to see if the reconstruction is well suited to heal. This real-time diagnostic information supports improved decision making throughout the dynamic treatment pathway. It boosts the confidence of the surgeon that the tissue will go on to heal so that reconstruction will be successful. This is better for the patient, the physician and the medical system,” notes Lemire.

Kent Imaging is a pioneer in portable and digitally advanced multispectral oxygenation imaging technology and is dedicated to redefining how oxygenation imaging helps doctors drive better outcome in surgery and wound care. Kent’s Snapshot_NIR is a non-invasive diagnostic imaging device that provides insight into the availability of oxygenated blood to the imaged tissue, enabling improved decision-making throughout wound care, plastic surgery, colorectal surgery, trauma, and cardiac specialties. Chapman, the Executive Chairman of Kent Imaging, licensed this advanced medical imaging technology from the National Research Council of Canada. He worked extensively with the council’s team to commercialize the innovative imaging technology and make it applicable in day-to-day wound care activities by physicians. Today, the company holds multiple patents in medical technology that power its solution portfolio for assessing tissue oxygen saturation.

Revolutionizing Medical Imaging

Distilling the core challenges in the field of medical imaging devices, Lemire points out that most traditional medical imaging devices are fitted with a large stand, are cumbersome to move around the hospital and are expensive to acquire and use. When looking into the broader history of wound care technology, he says, earlier physicians used an invasive device focused on a dye called ICG (Indocyanine green) to identify blood flow near a wound. Rising to these challenges, Kent’s Snapshot_NIR handheld solution is making a remarkable impact Snapshot_NIR’s portable, flexible features make it easy to be used at all points of care, including the examination room, operating room, clinics and private practices. To track treatment effectiveness, Kent’s non-invasive multispectral imaging solution allows for unlimited imaging by the physician. These images can be stored to the device or downloaded to a USB drive. “With Kent’s technology, medical imaging no longer requires a dye, and as a result, images of oxygen saturation can be captured anytime, and as often as required,” explains Lemire. Technically, Kent’s imaging solution shows the approximate value of oxygen saturation and hemoglobin level in superficial tissue.