Hitachi Receives FDA Clearance for Widest Bore 1.5T MR System

The New Shape of MR

Echelon Oval is designed around the shape of the human body, allowing for an optimal patient experience with outstanding comfort, space and efficiency.

The game-changing 74cm oval bore is the widest 1.5T MR system available. Enhanced patient accessibility combined with Hitachi’s Workflow Integrated Technology (WIT), advanced imaging capabilities, and UltraPlus Customer Support, makes Echelon Oval an ideal solution for-improved workflow, greater diagnostic confidence, and increased cost-efficiencies.

Echelon Oval, the innovation that’s changing the shape of MR.

 

 

Hitachi Medical Systems received FDA clearance for its Echelon Oval 1.5T Ultra-Wide MR system. The Echelon Oval has a bore that is, as the name implies, oval-shaped, very much unlike conventional MRI systems which have a round bore.

 

 

 

WIT RF Coil System: Integrated coil system with 16 channels, optical RF transmission, and multiple coil connection points optimizes workflow and image quality while providing head-first or feet-first positioning for all imaging. Integrated Head and Body/Spine coils can be used individually or in combination with WIT anterior coils for comprehensive neuro and body imaging. Additional multi-element coils are designed for high quality extremity, general and specialty imaging.

All of this and Hitachi’s RADAR motion compensation capability—applicable on all coils,
in all body planes and with pulse sequence flexibility further ensure exquisite head to
toe imaging.

Neuro – Brain

Neuro – Spine

Body

Ortho – Upper

Ortho – Lower

T2 RelaxMap

Micro TE

Vascular

BeamSat TOF

SIR Map Analysis

 

MRI revolutionized, breaking the sound barrier.

This research will revolutionize MRI as we know it!!

 

BETHESDA, Md., May 8, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — A team of scientists led by Dr. Stanley Fricke of the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington DC, broke the “Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) sound barrier,” a finding that could lead to a hundred-fold increase in MRI speed, according to a new clinical study published this week in the peer-reviewed journal Medical Physics. “Our ultimate goal,” said Dr. Fricke, “is to image small children in seconds rather than minutes. In this way children will not need to be anesthetized prior to imaging.”

Past attempts to substantially accelerate MR imaging failed because gradient pulse sequences (the technology responsible for image formation in an MR machine) can cause twitching or more serious nerve stimulation. To prevent such unwanted and potentially dangerous side effects, the FDA and European regulators put in place limits on gradient strength and speed, based on older clinical studies that used relatively slow gradients. The new Medical Physics study used pulse sequences with rise times 100x faster than conventional MRI to prove that nerve stimulation could be eliminated by employing ultra-fast magnetic gradients.

According to Dr. Fricke, “the old speed limits may need to be reviewed in light of this new data. The new technology could lead to the adoption of MRI as a first-line method of assessing coronary artery disease, improve high-resolution brain mapping, and implement low-cost dental MRI as a potential non-ionizing-radiation alternative to x-rays.” Dr. Benjamin Shapiro, a team member from University of Maryland’s Fischell Department of Bioengineering, has proposed using the high gradients with magnetic nanoparticles to improve image-guided minimally-invasive therapy.

The landmark study, funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, challenges decades of conventional wisdom in the MRI field. Increasing the speed and magnitude of gradients has been a long-sought goal in the medical imaging community. “Prior clinical studies concluded that nerve stimulation prevented the use of strong gradient pulse sequences,” commented Dr. Fricke. He characterized the speed breakthrough as both metaphorically and literally “breaking the sound barrier,” since the higher MRI frequency is beyond human hearing ability.

The ultra-strong and ultra-fast gradient technology to break the MRI sound barrier was produced with industry-leading instrumentation created by Weinberg Medical Physics LLC, an innovative R&D lab in Bethesda, Maryland. Last week, the company was granted a patent for non-stimulating magnetic gradient generation methods.

Media Contact: Dr. Irving Weinberg(301) 564-0835

SOURCE Weinberg Medical Physics LLC