Vendors polish advanced apps with 3T platforms

MR vendors have been chipping away at new clinical applications for years. They have pointed to 3T as the means to expand routine practice in ways that are not routine, adding computing engines to handle the massive volumes of data that would gush forth, expanding data pipelines, building out coils with extended channels—in short, creating the infrastructure to support a new diagnostic order. This year, they mean business.

Breast imaging, oncology applications, and even, possibly, cardiac studies will be marquee applications next month on the RSNA exhibit floor. Siemens Medical Solutions began laying the groundwork for what it will show this year at the RSNA meeting with its introduction in 2003 of Tim, its Total imaging matrix. Tim CT is so named because the table moves as it does in CT for continuous scanning down the body to allow peripheral runoff MR angiography. A derivative to be showcased at this year's meeting will allow whole-body scanning to visualize primary tumors and aid staging of metastases.

Tim exemplifies the efforts by MR vendors to lay a foundation for product development based on powerful electronics, forging a multitude of integrated matrix coil elements and independent radiofrequency channels to support simple as well as complex neuro imaging studies; orthopedic and cartilage assessment; and breast, vascular, and cardiac exams.

Not since the heady days of the late 1980s have vendors been this excited about MR as the means for doing just about everything. Back then, pundits touted MR as a "onestop shop." But that characterization has long since faded. Extraordinary imaging of the heart, breast, and cancer require extraordinary technologies— specialty coils and tables, pulse sequences, and computing engines— and massive amounts of signal. This door has been opened by 3T.

Past gains in signal came at the expense of usability and productivity. Operators had to tweak sequences just so and moderate scan times just right to get the best image quality without depositing too much energy in patients. They performed a balancing act in which specific absorption rate (SAR) and reproducibility of results were the villains.

Philips Healthcare will bring out a new 3T "product innovation" that promises to fell these villains. The new 3T, which was unnamed at press time, will mark a "fundamental change in the way we acquire patient images," according to Deepak Malhotra, Philips vice president for marketing and strategy for MR.

"We believe it will take 3T to new levels of performance in terms of achieving consistency of results across a broad range of clinical applications, patient size, and raw imaging speed," he said.

In the past, 3T may not always have produced optimal results for certain clinical procedures, which has slowed the adoption of 3T by mainstream radiologists, according to Malhotra.

Breast imaging is an especially hot area for development, one that is well suited to 3T if the technology can be made user-friendly.