MRI

You’re offered a giant bowl of rocky road ice cream on Thanksgiving, but you’d like to lose 15 pounds by New Year’s Day. What do you do? Princeton University researchers have discovered that two separate brain areas are involved in the decision to choose short-term satisfaction or settle for long-term happiness.

British researchers say they have found an effective way to combine PET and MR in one system. They intend to get a prototype animal imaging model up and running by the end of 2005 to prove their claim.

Sales of gamma cameras have been flat for so long they have become one of the few certainties in the otherwise unpredictable marketplace of medical imaging. True to form, the two factors in a major predictor of future change, equipment orders versus sales, were virtually equal for gamma cameras in the first half of 2004 at about $185 million for North American customers. But there is reason to believe that will change and that the progenitor of this change will be SPECT/CT.

Drug manufacturers are increasingly relying on functional MRI to help assess the efficacy of psychiatric drugs. It could potentially save millions of dollars and help speed effective drugs to the marketplace, according to speakers at the Horizon Seminar “Imaging and Healthcare: The Future” held last month in Cambridge, U.K.

MRI manufacturers responded to claustrophobic patients by developing open scanners. Now researchers have gone one step further: They’ve developed an MR scanner that enters the patient, rather than vice versa.

The FDA gave final approval last Friday for marketing of the first MR-guided focused ultrasound ablation system for treatment of uterine fibroids. Application caveats remain, however.

The introduction of open-bore technology spurred the spread of MR imaging from preoperative diagnosis to intraoperative monitoring. But MR’s surgical scope could go only as far as low-field systems allowed.

The government today announced its participation in one of the largest initiatives to date to determine effective neuroimaging techniques that will help chart brain changes associated with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease. The announcement comes barely two weeks after Medicare agreed to reimburse for PET studies of suspected Alzheimer’s patients.

If you think cardiology is the only opportunity for niche CT, think again. CT could well be on the verge of a major change in usage fomented not by technology but by perspective. And MR might not be far behind. As happens so often, history will guide the way.

Quantitative myocardial first-pass perfusion can distinguish coronary artery stenoses with a high degree of specificity and negative predictive value. This noninvasive test offers an alternative to diagnostic catheterization to grade the severity of coronary artery disease, according to a presentation last week at the North American Society of Cardiac Imaging meeting in Amelia Island, FL.

MR perfusion imaging, along with intracoronary pressure data, may help identify hemodynamically relevant coronary artery diseases, according to a study presented this week at the North American Society for Cardiac Imaging meeting in Amelia Island, FL.

MR safety precautions for Codman Hakim Programmable Valve, Delta Shunt Assembly, Polaris Adjustable Pressure Valve, Pulsar Valve, Sophy Mini Monopressure Valve, Strata Valve, Sophy Adjustasble Pressure Valve.

Cardiology fellows may find their cardiovascular MR training inadequate compared with nuclear and vascular imaging, according to a study by the American College of Cardiology Foundation. The lack of CMR equipment and/or curricula concerns the ACCF because recently revised training guidelines require a minimum exposure to the modality.

Cardiology fellows may find their cardiovascular MR training inadequate compared with nuclear and vascular imaging, according to a study conducted by the American College of Cardiology Foundation. The lack of CMR equipment and/or curricula concerns the ACCF because recently revised training guidelines require a minimum exposure to the modality.

Busy schedules may prevent radiologists from taking full advantage of 3D imaging data, so the 3D Imaging Service and Radiology Computer Aided Diagnostics Laboratory at the Massachusetts General Hospital is stepping up to the postprocessing bat. The lab uses a full-time staff to provide support to radiology departments and the rest of the hospital.

The MR community has a new king of the hill. The University of Illinois at Chicago on Sept. 21 began operating a 9.4T MR scanner. The scanner, the most powerful such machine in the world for human studies, reveals not only anatomy but metabolism.The custom-built scanner will help make UIC’s new Center for Magnetic Resonance Research a premier international center for human brain research, according to center director Dr. Keith Thulborn.

A lottery fund in the U.K. has enabled the purchase of about $72 million worth of MR equipment for hospitals throughout the country. Unfortunately, many scanners are lying idle, as the charitable contribution did not include operating expenses.

Survey results released last week by IMV Medical Information Division suggesting a drop in demand for cardiac cath procedures might cause some to worry that cardiac assessment is on the wane and that equipment sales might soon follow. Those concerns fade, however, when the statistics are put into context.

The implantable, single-use 9526 Reveal Plus Insertable Loop Recorder can record EKGs in patients with cardiac arrhythmia. It's ferromagnetic components present no safety risk, but patients must be well-informed.