Radiology
- Ronald G. Evens, MD
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
Excerpt
There has been a dramatic reduction in the time required for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of patients. Conventional MRI studies require approximately 15 minutes per anatomic or technical sequence. Accordingly, if the radiologist needs more than one imaging plane, ie, frontal and lateral, or differing analyses of the MRI data, ie, T1- or T2-weighted images, the time required for imaging of a patient may be 1 hour or more. Several new technological approaches could reduce the imaging time to 15 minutes. If these are successful, MRI should become more available and less expensive. As an example, several manufacturers have "fast imaging techniques," eg, fast spin-echo,1 that reduce imaging time by a factor of at least 10 over standard sequences.
There are likely to be additional improvements that will reduce the time for imaging (even with high resolution) even further. The most promising technique being investigated is
