Elscint rounds out MRI product lineup

Four scanners in its MRI product line apparently aren't enoughfor Israeli multimodality vendor Elscint. The company will usethe RSNA meeting to unveil its latest magnet, the 1-tesla Prima1TG.

The "TG" in Prima's appellation stands for the scanner'snovel twin-gradient capability, according to Zvi Goldman, seniorMR product manager. With the same acquisition, users can selectone or both of two slew rates: a 30 millitesla/m per millisecondrate and a 70-mtesla/m/msec option.

The 70-mtesla/m/msec slew rate, which can be used only forsmall field-of-view acquisitions, should prove useful for fast-scanningapplications, such as echo-planar imaging, and will reduce oreliminate involuntary muscle contractions, which may cause motionartifacts, Goldman said. Prima 1TG will be displayed as a work-in-progressand will be manufactured at Elscint's MRI facility in Fort Collins,CO.

In CT, Elscint has upgraded its CT-Twin scanner to come upwith CT-TwinRTS, which features a new 7-million-heat-unit x-raytube, which Elscint claims has a heat storage capacity equivalentto 14 MHU, due to CT-Twin's dual-slice detector technology. The7-MHU rating exceeds that of Toshiba's 6.5-MHU tube, which previouslyhad the highest heat storage capacity in the industry.

CT-TwinRTS is capable of what Elscint calls real-time spiralscanning, in which reconstruction of the current image is conductedin conjunction with the spiral acquisition. The technique enablesphysicians to see a sample of the entire volume by the time theacquisition is completed.

Like other medical imaging vendors, Elscint is taking advantageof the new O2 workstation developed by Silicon Graphics, and hasported its OmniPro 2 software to the platform. EndoCT is a newapplication on OmniPro 2 that allows users to conduct noninvasive3-D simulations of endoscopic procedures.