Picker features short-bore MRI magnets

MRI will be the featured attraction in Picker's booth (Hall B, #7548). The company in August debuted two new short-bore MRI magnets, the 1.5-tesla Edge Eclipse and 1-tesla Vista Polaris, which are 22% shorter and 30% lighter than their predecessors (SCAN 8/20/97). Either system can be installed in 325 sq ft of floor space, have patient apertures of 61 cm, and patient bores that are 6 ft long.

Both systems have powerful 27 mtesla/m gradients, and Picker will display an optimization protocol called AcuScan that squeezes additional performance out of the gradients, according to Linda Eastwood, MR marketing manager for the Cleveland company.

New areas of research for Picker include the use of MRI for early detection of stroke, in which a brain exam could help clinicians treat patients with tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) and anti-clotting drugs.

For the 0.5-tesla Asset scanner, Picker has added PowerDrive 100 gradients, bringing the system's specifications up to a 16 mtesla/m peak rating with a slew rate of 25 mtesla/m/msec.

In the realm of MRI research, Picker will show its latest work in MRI-guided procedures by integrating Outlook with the ViewPoint image-guided surgery workstation. The company will also show three levels of MRI-guided procedure capability, Eastwood said, with the most advanced capability including Outlook, Viewpoint, and MRI-compatible surgical tools.