MRI

Parallel imaging has gone exponential in Siemens' latest version of iPAT. The advanced iPAT Squared technology allows four, eight, or even 16 times the data capture of systems without parallel imaging, according to the company. There is a catch, however: Parallel imaging is a signal hog, and that can cause problems at all but the highest field strengths.

Parallel imaging is extending the limits of resolution with anatomic and functional studies of unprecedented clarity and diagnostic value. It is cutting acquisition times by more than half to freeze motion more easily and increase patient throughput.

The American Registry of Radiologic Technologists in June celebrated its 250,000th certification. The ARRT might reach the half-million mark sooner than expected as it gears up to allow MRI techs and sonographers to be certified without first becoming radiologic technologists.

Contrast-enhanced MRI should be the modality of choice to check whether colon or pancreatic cancer has spread to the liver, according to a study from Massachusetts General Hospital.

The benchmark of any breast imaging tool is its ability to match mammography in cancer detection. Breast MRI not only holds its own in population subsets, it also promises to contribute more to breast cancer management than mammography can.

Hospitals are full of the kind of metal that can change calm into chaos: patient carts, oxygen tanks, cleaning buckets. A momentary lapse or a step too close to an MR scanner can turn a mundane staple of hospital life into a lethal projectile.

MR angiography can successfully monitor children who have had arterial switch surgery for transposition of the great arteries. Researchers in Belgium suggest the technique could spare children x-ray exposure from repeated exams and the potential toxicity of iodinated contrast agents.

Volumetric MR images show that neonatal therapies designed to help premature babies survive and thrive could help offset brain injuries associated with premature birth.

Diagnostic radiologists may be growing familiar with interactive 3D imaging tools, but surgeons' acceptance has been slower. Further use of 3D imaging in the operating room is far from inevitable if surgeons remain unconvinced of the need for computerized anatomic reconstructions. Speakers at the CARS meeting effectively countered such skepticism by highlighting practical uses of 3D imaging data in neurosurgery.

Clinicians working with an integrated system tend to be heavy users of medical images, accessing images as well as the report in four out of five cases, according to a report presented Friday.

Practical experiments show that the average person filters out a great deal of visual information. Functional MRI studies suggest that radiologists’ ocular systems become trained to sponge up that data.

Under the best of circumstances, 3T imaging of the prostate with a body coil can approximate the level of detail and sensitivity available at 1.5T with an endorectal coil. Researchers hope that with a 3T-oriented endorectal coil they will finally be able to take advantage of 3T's higher resolution in a challenging portion of the anatomy.

Cardiac CT is moving closer to competing with MR in imaging damage to the myocardium caused by infarction. A group of researchers from Aachen University of Technology in Germany presented three studies related to this ongoing race.

The venerable DICOM CT and MR image objects are now more than 10 years old, outdated by comparison with the rapidly advancing capabilities of CT and MR technologies.

A U.K. multicenter study has shown that a combination of MRI and mammography offers the best way of detecting breast cancer in women with a high genetic risk of the disease. The results add more weight to arguments for routine breast MRI for women carrying BRCA mutations and possibly for omitting mammography altogether

Increasing use of clinical 3T MR imaging has prompted the American College of Radiology to tweak its accreditation process to include the higher field strength magnets.

Stealthy magnetophages and bacterial contrast agents were among the brain candies enjoyed last week by a community starved for something new. These treats were rich in potential, creamy smooth in creativity, and a welcome change from the meat and potatoes diet that has been fed to the MR community for the past 20 years.

Brain injuries associated with premature birth could be offset somewhat by neonatal therapies designed to help preemies survive and thrive, according to an Australian study using volumetric MR.

Diffusion-weighted MR imaging can conclusively describe abnormalities of the lacrimal glands in patients with Sjögren’s syndrome, according to a study from Japan in the April issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology. Although the disease is uncommon and often benign, it can lead to pulmonary and kidney infections, and even lymphoma.

Despite shortcomings, contrast-enhanced MR angiography prevailed over digital subtraction angiography often enough in a head-to-head trial to become the modality of choice for investigations of suspected infrapopliteal occlusive disease at New York-Weill Cornell Medical Center.

Two functional MRI studies presented this week at the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine meeting offered innovative views about human mental development.

Single-voxel proton MR spectroscopy could save many women from the pain and expense of unnecessary breast biopsy.

What goes around has come around in The Wall Street Journal’s coverage of diagnostic imaging self-referral practices. Its article Monday (May 2) on how some companies and doctors cash in on outpatient CT and MRI sounded the same chord as its November 1991 investigative report on physician joint venturing of outpatient imaging services.

MR safety information reports bare-wire and drug-eluting coronary stents are safe at 3T or less.

The notion that stroke is a male disease may be putting women at risk. A recent study found women are less likely than men to receive certain diagnostic tests for stroke.

Researchers in Belgium have found that cooperation and consensus between radiologists and pathologists bolsters the diagnosis of musculoskeletal soft-tissue tumors when MR and histology results are contradictory.

The amygdala, a brain structure critical in making judgments, is markedly smaller in cocaine addicts, according to a study conducted at Harvard Medical School. While the results are preliminary, they may indicate that reduced amygdala volumes predispose people to cocaine addiction.

Diagnosis, imaging, and management of brain tumors have all improved in the century since the first successful brain tumor resection. Technological advances are largely responsible, and not the least of these is digital imaging.

Parallel imaging in breast MR improves lesion characterization and significantly reduces scan time, allowing for shorter bilateral examinations, according to researchers at Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, NJ.

Fueled by refinements in practice, advances in research, and explorations of new techniques such as 3T MR spectroscopy, the utility of breast MR is on the rise. Diagnostic Imaging spoke with Dr. Elizabeth Morris, director of breast MRI at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City to obtain an overview of the status and potential of this modality.