The University of Manchester reports that it is the first center in the world that has installed a new “next generation” MRI scanner, featuring a 5.5 tonne magnet, worth a massive 3.0 Tesla.
Philips, the Dutch manufacturer, describes some of the capabilities of this product:
— SENSE™ is an essential element for imaging at 3.0T, increasing image quality and reducing susceptibility artifacts, SAR, peripheral nerve stimulation and acoustic noise
— IView BOLD imaging enables direct assessment of brain studies in real-time
— MobiScan, total body imaging in a single pass, providing a virtually unlimited field-of-view
— Achieva synergy – software and hardware platform are common to all field strengths – advances at one field strength are available on all
— Extensive range of coils
More at Philips (specs, product tour, case studies, image examples, etc)…
Update: Those wanting to get a better sense of what a 3.0 Tesla MRI machine can do, here’s our earlier post about the works of a 1.5T unit.