Siemens’ New Technology Aims to Reduce MRI Scan Time

Siemens Healthineers will unveil at RSNA 2016 its new technology, Compressed Sensing, that aims at overcoming one of the major limitations in MRI, according to a release.

Compressed Sensing allows MRI to be performed in a fraction of the time previously required, the release said.

“If you look at the long term potential of compressed sensing, we see it being a technology that can revolutionize acceleration for MRI and open up new clinical application fields,” Andreas Schneck, VP of marketing and sales for MR, said. “With Compressed Sensing, we change the way MRI images are being acquired and we have found a way to acquire less information which helps us accelerate the scan time on the one hand side, but at the same time helps us overcome motion, and motion artifacts are topics we sometimes struggle with in MRI.”

Compressed Sensing is also expected to enable new applications and allow imaging of additional patient groups, Schneck said. “By overcoming motion artifacts, we are able to image patient groups that we have not been able to image well before, for example cardiac patients that cannot properly hold their breath.”

The technology is initially being introduced for Cardiac Cine imaging, which reduces imaging time from four minutes to 16 seconds, according to the release. The technology is expected to be available for additional use cases in the future.

Compressed Sensing is 510(k) pending.

Siemens Healthineers is at booth 1936.