Preview: MR seeks new high ground

MR vendors will show advanced technologies in traditional-and nontraditional-realms at the RSNA meeting.

Celebrating the installation of its 1000th MR system, Toshiba will showcase its Vantage Atlas MR for general radiology, including both cardiac and neuro imaging. The company will also show a 3T work-in-progress.

GE will focus on patient comfort, enhanced clinical utility, and workflow improvements. Its wide-bore 1.5T Optima MR450w will be featured with Continuum Pak 22.0, the latest clinical applications package, designed to enhance utility. GE will also highlight the 1.5T extremity MR system, which is easy to site and comfortable for patients.

MR-Touch will reappear as a commercially available product based on MR elastography. GE showed it for the first time last year. Using low-frequency mechanical waves generated in the body through an external acoustic driver, the product demonstrates the elastic properties of tissue as a potential discriminator of pathology.

Philips will showcase a work-in-progress that represents the “next generation” in MR imaging for the firm, according to a company representative. No more details on this new technology will be made public until the RSNA conference opens.

The company will also configure its Panorama HFO (high-field open) scanner for oncology, enabling MR scanning of patients in a treatment position, as well as the taking of MR-guided biopsies and insertion of radioactive seeds for brachytherapy.