American Health Services Corp., a Newport Beach-based...

American Health Services Corp., a Newport Beach-based operator of diagnostic imaging centers, said it has purchased the rights to operate a smoking-cessation program used by more than 200 hospitals and 125 companies in the East and Texas.

The company said it has acquired from a nonprofit foundation the operations of the Stop Smoking Clinic outside the state of Massachusetts, where the program previously was based. The purchase price of the stock swap transaction was undisclosed. The company said it also has entered into a management agreement to operate the SSC clinic programs within Massachusetts.

American Health Services plans to combine the existing smoking-cessation programs developed by the Stop Smoking Clinic with a new brain electro-stimulation technology for behavior modification that it bought last year for $9.1 million. The technology, to which American Health Services holds the license in the United States and Mexico, is being tested with the aim of obtaining the Food and Drug Administration’s approval for marketing in the United States.

To accomplish that task, American Health Services said it has formed a new, wholly owned subsidiary called Neuromedical Technologies Inc., based in McLean, Va.

Robert J. Becker, president and chief executive officer of the subsidiary, said he previously managed American Health Services’ clinical studies on trans-cranial electro-stimulation therapy now under way at the University of Texas and Baylor University Medical School in Houston.

The therapy, Becker said, consists of applying subsensory electrical stimulation to the brain through electrodes attached to patients’ earlobes. He said the treatment helps people to quit smoking or stop using drugs and alcohol without withdrawal symptoms. Becker said that by May or June the company expects to have enough data to file a marketing application to the FDA.