Medical Imaging Trends That Have Caught Our Attention

Here, we’ll briefly delve into three trends that are enhancing medical imaging technologies, and consequently, diagnostics, patient outcomes, and healthcare accessibility. To illustrate these trends, we’ll use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which utilizes radio frequency (RF) signals.

Healthcare professionals depend on a range of medical imaging methods to non-invasively observe internal body structures and functions. These techniques are valuable for diagnosing diseases and injuries, monitoring treatment effectiveness, and planning surgical procedures. Each imaging modality is tailored for specific clinical applications.

Combining Imaging Modalities

Hybrid imaging technologies harness the power of combining multiple techniques to generate highly detailed views of the body. Healthcare professionals utilize these images to enhance the diagnosis and treatment of patients.

For example, PET/MRI scans integrate positron emission tomography (PET) scans and MRI scans. MRI provides detailed images of internal bodily structures and their functions, while PET identifies abnormalities using tracers. This fusion is particularly beneficial in the treatment of conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, and brain tumors. In the past, integrating PET and MRI was unfeasible due to MRI’s powerful magnets interfering with PET’s imaging detectors. Scans had to be conducted separately and then merged, involving intricate image processing and potential data loss. According to Stanford Medicine, the PET/MRI combination is more precise, safer, and more convenient than conducting separate scans.

Increasing Imaging System Performance

Performance Enhancements result in improved image quality and more precise information for diagnostic and treatment purposes. For instance, researchers now have access to MRI systems with field strengths of up to 7T. This performance upgrade enhances the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), resulting in clearer and more detailed imaging results. There is also a drive to make MRI receivers more digitally oriented. With the availability of higher resolution and higher frequency analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), there is an opportunity to shift the ADC to the RF coil, which can reduce noise and increase SNR when power consumption is appropriately managed. Similar benefits can also be achieved by adding more individual RF coils to the system. Prioritizing performance improvements translates to improving elements of the patient experience such as scan times and costs.

Designing Imaging Equipment for Portability

By design, some patient assessment and treatment equipment started out in controlled environments for proper function (e.g., MRI suite).  

Computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are great examples.

Although these imaging techniques are effective for diagnosis, they can be physically demanding for critically ill patients. Technological advancements are now shifting these diagnostic services to where patients are.

When it comes to traditionally immobile devices such as MRI machines, creating a design for portability involves taking into account factors such as size and weight, power, magnetic field strength, cost, image quality, and safety. At the component level, choices like high-performance capacitors play a crucial role in ensuring stable and efficient power generation and signal processing within a smaller, portable framework.

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With the development of medical imaging technology, there comes out many companies which can supply imaging products, such as injectors and syringes. LnkMed medical technology is one of them. We supply a full portfolio of auxiliary diagnostic products: CT injectors，MRI injector and DSA injector. They work well with various CT/MRI scanner brands such as GE, Philips, Siemens. Besides the injector, we also supply the syringe and tube consumable for different brands of injector include Medrad/Bayer, Mallinckrodt/Guerbet, Nemoto, Medtron, Ulrich.

The following are our core strengths: fast delivery times; Complete certification qualifications, many years of export experience, perfect quality inspection process, fully functional products.

You and your group are welcome to come and consult, we provide a 24-hour reception service.