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A Fuller Picture of Your Lungs
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| gehzumteufel |
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| quote: | A Fuller Picture of Your Lungs
A cheap MRI machine images lung function more realistically.
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can create detailed images of almost all the tissues of the body, allowing doctors to monitor blood flow in the brain, map the borders of tumors, and find slipped spinal discs. But conventional MRI, which images water in the body, produces poor pictures of the lungs, which are full of air, and gives an incomplete picture of lung functions. Now researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, MA, have built a cheap MRI machine that uses a weak magnetic field to image critical aspects of lung physiology that are invisible to conventional imaging techniques.
Led by Matthew Rosen, a visiting scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian center, and Ronald Walsworth, a senior lecturer in physics at Harvard, the researchers built an MRI scanner that images how gas flows through the lungs and how much oxygen is being absorbed throughout lung tissue. They've used the system to study how lung function differs when lying down and sitting or standing up, and are planning a study of asthma in conjunction with the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging in Boston. The system has not yet been used to compare healthy and diseased patients. If it proves its worth in clinical trials, the Harvard researchers believe it would be inexpensive and simple enough to be used in pulmonologists' offices.
Lung function is dependent on the orientation of the body, but it hasn't been possible to study this before because conventional MRI would require patients to lie on their backs. (PET can be used to look at some aspects of the physiology of the lungs but it gives limited information.) Asthma symptoms can be exacerbated when patients lie down, for example. The Harvard system "allows imaging with the patient in any orientation, something no one has ever been able to do," says Bastiaan Driehuys, an assistant professor at the Center for In Vivo Microscopy at Duke University.
The open MRI system may also make it possible to monitor the lung function of newborns in intensive care without taking them out of their incubators. The researchers have filed a provisional patent for this application.
Unlike conventional MRI, which images the protons in water molecules, the Harvard MRI system monitors magnetically polarized helium gas inhaled by subjects. Conventional MRI requires a magnet about 150 times stronger than that in the Harvard system to magnetically align protons inside the body. But the helium used in the Harvard system is magnetically aligned before the patient inhales it, making it possible to use a very weak magnet inside the scanner.
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Lung check: Images of the lungs of a healthy subject taken in the Harvard MRI system show the regional concentrations of oxygen when lying down (left) and sitting up (right).
Credit: Matthew Rosen/Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics |
In Rosen's imager, the magnetic field is generated by two coils mounted on what look like two metal garden trellises. Wire grids and rings in these structures direct the field towards a person lying, standing, or sitting up in the center. (In conventional MRI machines, a cylindrical magnet that surrounds the supine patient produces the strong magnetic field.) The subject wears an antenna over his or her chest that consists of a cardboard tube wrapped with a coil of wire and coated in rubber. After inhaling a mixture of polarized helium and air through a tube, the subject must sit still and hold his or her breath for up to 30 seconds while the antenna picks up the magnetic spin of the helium in the subject's lungs. Rosen says the system cost less than $100,000 to build.
In their imager, Rosen and Walsworth can see the position of helium atoms in a subject's lungs. Oxygen molecules influence the spin of the polarized helium, so the Harvard system can also visualize the concentration of oxygen in the lungs. If it's high in one region of the lung, oxygen isn't being absorbed well and the subject may have poor lung function.
There are several other groups using polarized gas to create MRI images of the lungs, says Driehuys. But all the other groups use expensive, commercially available MRI systems. What makes Rosen and Walworth's work unique, Driehuys says, is that they've built their own cheap, low-power MRI scanner.
The Harvard-Smithsonian researchers are now adapting their system to shorten the time needed for imaging. "You do have to stay still and hold your breath," says Rosen, which can be difficult for people with compromised lung function. |
CORe version: MRI made on the cheap images lungs the multimillion dollar MRI machines can't, and in standing, sitting, and laying positions also! |
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| leph555 |
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| THE_Chris |
Thats great . MRI machines cost about €3 mil in general and the huge magnets cause problems.
I've seen pics of one of these -
sucked into the bore of an MRI.
If you've ever done welding you have to get your eyes x-rayed incase welding dust got in them, or the MRI magnets could cause the particles to move and cut your eyes to bits. |
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| gehzumteufel |
| quote: | Originally posted by THE_Chris
Thats great . MRI machines cost about €3 mil in general and the huge magnets cause problems.
I've seen pics of one of these -
sucked into the bore of an MRI.
If you've ever done welding you have to get your eyes x-rayed incase welding dust got in them, or the MRI magnets could cause the particles to move and cut your eyes to bits. |
yeah, and thats why this machine has its advantages. it doesnt require a ton of power compared to its larger cousin, and it, unlike standard (F)MRI and PET scans, doesnt require you to be laying down. you can be sitting, standing or laying! |
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| SteelWolf |
| quote: | Originally posted by THE_Chris
I've seen pics of one of these -
sucked into the bore of an MRI.
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PICS LOL!!!
On a serious note, this is absolutely fascinating, another breakthru in medical technology. This will certainly help diagnose several nasty things a lot easier. And the price, $100,000? DAMN... thats a step down from a conventional MRI machine. I can also see this being used in a lot of thried world countries (again, the price deal). Very neat! |
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| gehzumteufel |
| quote: | Originally posted by SteelWolf
PICS LOL!!!
On a serious note, this is absolutely fascinating, another breakthru in medical technology. This will certainly help diagnose several nasty things a lot easier. And the price, $100,000? DAMN... thats a step down from a conventional MRI machine. I can also see this being used in a lot of thried world countries (again, the price deal). Very neat! |
well the machine itself is actually very specialized. you cant really use it for anything but imaging the lungs. its not powerful enough. so really useless to 3rd world countries as their medicine has to deal with basic things before it gets advanced. |
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| THE_Chris |
| Even as a specialist lung thing is very useful as the lungs are one of the hardest parts of the body to image, given that they're mostly full of air. Most of these imaging techniques rely on density changes between various materials, which just doesnt happen much in the lungs. So something like this is quite a good thing! |
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| SteelWolf |
| quote: | Originally posted by gehzumteufel
well the machine itself is actually very specialized. you cant really use it for anything but imaging the lungs. its not powerful enough. so really useless to 3rd world countries as their medicine has to deal with basic things before it gets advanced. |
^True that. Regardless of its intended use its still a leap forward in medical science |
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| gehzumteufel |
| quote: | Originally posted by THE_Chris
Even as a specialist lung thing is very useful as the lungs are one of the hardest parts of the body to image, given that they're mostly full of air. Most of these imaging techniques rely on density changes between various materials, which just doesnt happen much in the lungs. So something like this is quite a good thing! |
this was addressed in the article. ;)
| quote: | Originally posted by SteelWolf
^True that. Regardless of its intended use its still a leap forward in medical science |
totally agree! just was putting it in perspective considering all things. |
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| DJ Shibby |
| quote: | Originally posted by THE_Chris
Thats great . MRI machines cost about €3 mil in general and the huge magnets cause problems.
I've seen pics of one of these -
sucked into the bore of an MRI.
If you've ever done welding you have to get your eyes x-rayed incase welding dust got in them, or the MRI magnets could cause the particles to move and cut your eyes to bits. |
WOW
I would hate to be the poor guy they discovered that on! |
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| DJ Shibby |
| quote: | Originally posted by THE_Chris
Thats great . MRI machines cost about €3 mil in general and the huge magnets cause problems.
I've seen pics of one of these -
sucked into the bore of an MRI.
If you've ever done welding you have to get your eyes x-rayed incase welding dust got in them, or the MRI magnets could cause the particles to move and cut your eyes to bits. |
WOW
I would hate to be the poor guy they discovered that on! |
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| THE_Chris |
| I think the problem was also how to get it out again as it smashed up the bore of the MRI and got royally stuck :D |
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