Polaroid to begin shipping dry laser imager in spring. (Polaroid Medical Imaging Systems) (Product Announcement)

Polaroid Medical Imaging Systems said it will begin shipping its Helios Model 810, a long-anticipated dry laser imager, early in the second quarter of next year. The system uses film that can be handled in full daylight.

The Cambridge, Mass.-based company hopes Helios, which records digital images on a new type of film using a proprietary non-silver-halide process, will become an industry standard or perhaps eventually replace wet film processing for digital imaging.

Helios will never make the hospital or imaging center darkroom obsolete because traditional X-ray fil, which accounts for 70% to 75% of all imaging studies, still relies on wet film processing.

For now, the imager can only process 8-by-10-inch film, so it will be limited to ultrasound and nuclear imaging applications. Polaroid plans, however, to adapt the system to larger film formats so that it can be used with magnetic resonance imaging, …