MRI

Studies described during a scientific session at the ISMRM on Wednesday showed that diagnostic power and field strength go hand in hand when it comes to evaluating multiple sclerosis.

New MR spectroscopy findings indicate that changes in brain glutamate levels reflect changes in heroin craving among addicts during methadone maintenance therapy. MRS may eventually help predict if addicts will relapse after treatment.

Quality Electrodynamics has constructed and tested a 32-channel cardiac array for use on the Toshiba 1.5T Vantage Atlas that its developers say will provide acceleration factors in any direction, including oblique phase-encoding, which is often applied in cardiac imaging.

A comprehensive evaluation of Magnevist use among the 3.3 million members of Kaiser Permanente in Northern California has found a lower risk for developing nephrogenic systemic fibrosis than reported in previous studies in renal disease patients who received gadolinium-based MR contrast media.

Quantitative MR, characterized by the precise measurement of data points that underlie MR images, may one day provide an exact and definable basis to recognize the early signs of disease and response to therapy. Philips Healthcare is moving toward that day, developing techniques that quantify the presence of cancerous tumors and heart disease.

A clinical trial presented Monday demonstrated how complicated the quantification of dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI of suspected prostate cancer can be.

Assessment with MR is essential for the early detection of rheumatoid arthritis in the hands and the monitoring of drug therapy, but hand studies are not cost effective. That’s where the Japanese firm MR Technology of Tsukuba, in the prefecture of Ibaraki, comes in.

GE Healthcare’s gas-based MRI imaging strategy may find a home, if tests of the technology by Merck pan out. The pharmaceutical company plans to audition GE’s Spin Signal Technology (SST) utilizing hyperpolarized xenon 129 gas for use in assessing its experimental respiratory treatments.

A clinical trial presented Monday demonstrated how complicated the quantification of dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI of suspected prostate cancer can be.

MR elastography debuted on Tuesday as a clinical application ready for diagnostic uses in the liver and many diagnostic niches elsewhere in the body.

Radiologists can anticipate access to more web-based educational programming from the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and a more intense international flavor in the society’s future work.

Medrad unveiled an educational program at the ISMRM meeting designed to teach the operators of GE Signa scanners how to perform prostate MR with its eCoil Endorectal Coil.

GE has unveiled a new 3T scanner, the Signa MR750, the first in a new generation of Signa scanners designed to handle the toughest imaging cases with minimal effort. More powerful gradients, increased anatomical coverage, enhanced parallel imaging, and a user interface that simplifies routine as well as academically challenging protocols promise to allow 3T to reach its clinical potential, said Jim Davis, GE vice president and general manager of global MR business.

Radiologists can anticipate access to more web-based educational programming from the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and a more intense international flavor in the society's future work.

Siemens Healthcare is focusing on its 3T Verio and 1.5T Essenza at the ISMRM meeting. Both were unveiled last year at the RSNA meeting.

Visitors to the 2008 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine meeting in Toronto need only wait a minute for the door to swing from clinical issues to advanced research on functional and metabolic imaging.

Therapeutic treatment in the very early stages of multiple sclerosis can help patients reduce brain tissue loss and maintain function. Brain atrophy is a common symptom in the relapsing-remitting form of the disease.

A couple of days ago I was in the zone. Shawna’s surgical mask hid her face, but I knew she was smiling. My banter was enough to make her laugh out loud a few times, so much that she paused while laying out the stainless steel instruments that soon would be probing the all too deep pockets between my teeth and gums.

Preoperative failure to identify vessels that could be recanalized or used for graft anastomosis may result in unnecessary amputations

Results of the EPITHET trial indicate MRI perfusion-diffusion mismatch can add a crucial three extra hours for safe administration of tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) to treat qualified acute stroke patients.

To the listener, jazz improvisation is an aural flight of fancy, borne aloft by a musician's on-the-spot skill and imagination. But functional MRI results show the brain actually follows a grounded process of activation and deactivation during these spontaneous musical riffs, according to researchers from the National Institutes of Health and Johns Hopkins University.

New brain imaging research shows that social drinkers experience decreased sensitivity in brain regions involved in detecting threats and increased activity in regions involved in reward after consuming alcohol. The first human brain imaging study of alcohol’s effect on the response of neuronal circuits to threatening stimuli appears in the April 30 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.

Neuroimaging with MRI at 3T is superior for nearly every application in the brain and spine, and it is certainly inferior for none. The technique has unique strengths for performing vascular work and functional brain imaging, but there is nothing that a 3T MR scanner can't do better than a 1.5T machine.

Despite expanding clinical applications driven by functional and breast imaging, MR scanners are stuck in a sales doldrums.

Sophisticated pulse sequence developments and practical applications for diffusion imaging dominated the work of finalists selected for the ISMRM’s 2008 Young Investigator Awards.

An 85-year-old woman complained of long-term mild abdominal pain. Abdominal examination revealed a palpable mass in the left paraumbilical region.

Computer-aided detection schemes for breast MR imaging have shown plenty of promise, but they always fall short of full automation and lesion characterization. Two recent studies, however, suggest CAD for breast MRI may be closing in on true cancer detection.

A casual attitude toward keeping track of gadolinium-enhanced studies may come back to haunt radiology departments that have become involved in several federal lawsuits alleging a connection between cases of nephrogenic systemic fibrosis and gadolinium-based MR contrast agents.

What’s happening with the American Roentgen Ray Society? Its annual meeting, known mainly for the quality of its refresher course, has become an essential point of coverage for world-class scientific research as well.

A preliminary study indicates that first-pass and delayed-enhancement myocardial CT correlate well with measures of infarction size gathered with equivalent cardiac MR procedures.