Development of A Prepolarized MRI Extremity Scanner

预极化 MRI 肢体扫描仪的开发

• 批准号: 6365048
• 负责人: ALBERT MACOVSKI
• 金额: $ 34.11万
• 依托单位: STANFORD UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2001
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2001-09-12 至 2005-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6365048
• 关键词: articular cartilage; biomedical equipment development; clinical research; clinical trials; diagnosis design /evaluation; human subject; human therapy evaluation; joint disorder; knee; magnetic resonance imaging; musculoskeletal disorder diagnosis; osteoarthritis

The objective of this research project is to demonstrate the technical feasibility of an ultra-low-cost form of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) called Prepolarized MRI for human extremity imaging. Conventional MRI systems cost between 1 million dollars and 3 million dollars. We propose a novel Prepolarized MRI system that uses two inexpensive electromagnets rather than one expensive superconducting magnet. We aim to demonstrate that a complete dedicated extremity Prepolarized MRI scanner imaging can be constructed for less than 50,000 dollars while maintaining excellent image quality. Over the last five years, we have made excellent progress towards these goals, including our first in vivo human wrist images recorded earlier this month. The total capital cost of our 0.43 T Prepolarized MRI wrist imaging system was less than 35,000 dollars, excluding the MRI data acquisition console. Our principal aim is to expand the size of the imaging system to 31 cm to accommodate knees, feet, and elbows. Once basic imaging is achieived on the 31-cm-bore system, we plan several hardware and software improvements to increase the SNR and contrast flexibility. We also plan a monthly study of normal human knee cartilage conspicuity. Two Stanford Radiologists will compare the normal images with gold-standard images obtained from a 0.5 T GE extremity scanner, and gauge whether the previous month's engineering changes actually improved image conspicuity. We hope at the end of this four year grant to have constructed a 0.5 T Prepolarized MRI system with SNR and contrast comparable to a conventional 0.5 T MRI scanner for less than 50,000 dollars in capital costs. If successful, our research could ultimately lead to significantly greater availability of high-quality Prepolarized MRI scanners, which could be sold for less than the cost of an ultrasound scanner.

该研究项目的目的是证明一种称为人肢体成像的磁共振成像（MRI）的超低成本形式的磁共振成像（MRI）的技术可行性。 常规MRI系统的成本在100万美元至300万美元之间。 我们提出了一种新型的预算力MRI系统，该系统使用两个廉价的电磁体，而不是一个昂贵的超导磁铁。 我们的目的是证明，可以以少于50,000美元的价格构建完整的专用肢体预算力的MRI扫描仪成像，同时保持出色的图像质量。在过去的五年中，我们朝着这些目标取得了长足的进步，包括我们本月初记录的第一张体内人类手腕图像。 我们的0.43吨预验MRI手腕成像系统的总资本成本少于35,000美元，不包括MRI数据采集控制台。 我们的主要目的是将成像系统的尺寸扩展到31厘米，以容纳膝盖，脚和肘部。 一旦在31厘米孔系统上实现了基本成像，我们就计划了一些硬件和软件改进，以提高SNR和对比度的灵活性。 我们还计划每月对正常的人膝膝部软骨明显研究。 两名斯坦福大学放射科医生将将正常图像与从0.5 T GE肢体扫描仪获得的金色标准图像进行比较，并衡量上个月的工程变化是否实际上改善了图像的显着性。 我们希望在本四年赠款结束时，已经构建了一个0.5吨prearized的MRI系统，并与常规0.5 T MRI扫描仪相当，资本成本少于50,000美元。如果成功的话，我们的研究最终可能会导致高质量的预算MRI扫描仪的可用性明显更大，可以以超过超声扫描仪的成本销售。