Volumetric and highly specialized imaging techniques will expand the clinical horizons of MR, according to GE Healthcare. Technologies that improve the speed of data acquisition and processing will make them practical.

Toshiba Medical Systems Europe is going toe-to-toe with the established high-end vendors at 1.5T during the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine meeting in Berlin. Its high-performance Vantage Atlas MR, shown several months earlier at the RSNA meeting as a work-in-progress, became a commercial reality with the first system installed and operating in March at a hospital in a Paris suburb and another more recently at an outpatient facility in Las Vegas.

An Emory University researcher has established the diagnostic power of a simple contrast-enhanced MRI protocol that informs surgeons about the presence and extent of hepatocellular cancer in cirrhotic livers that are scheduled for transplantation.

Unlike tests that provide thresholds such as good or bad cholesterol levels, MR scans are open to interpretation. Early steps toward quantitation have focused on measuring tumor size and volume as indicators of cancer progression or patient response to therapy. Philips is going further.

The differing interests of clinical and basic science researchers are apparent in the work of the finalists for Young Investigator Awards at this year’s ISMRM/ESMRMB meeting.