Large Bore MR System Has Reduced Noise, Extended Field-of-View, and Increased Homogeneity

Toshiba America Medical Systems, Inc. (Tustin, CA, USA), a developer of MR technology, announced U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance for the new open-bore 1.5T Vantage Titan MR system. With this clearance, Toshiba is on schedule to make the system commercially available in the first quarter of 2008. The open-bore of the Vantage Titan is 18% larger than other 1.5T systems on the market, featuring a large 71-cm patient aperture.

"Toshiba's Vantage Titan is now one of the most powerful MR units available with a 30/130 gradient platform,” said Bob Giegerich, director, MR Business Unit, Toshiba. "It is a dramatic improvement over traditional open-bore 1.5T MR systems, and offers the largest and widest bore available with a significant reduction in noise.”

The system also features Toshiba's patented Pianissimo noise reduction technology, which creates a better imaging experience for all patients. The Vantage Titan MR system also takes advantage of Toshiba's proprietary, contrast-free MRA techniques--Fresh Blood Imaging (FBI), Contrast-free Improved Angiography (CIA), Time-Spatial Labeling Inversion Pulse (Time-SLIP), and Time-Slip Angiography (TSA). Contrast-free imaging is especially important because gadolinium, the most common contrast agent used for MRI and MR angiography (MRA) exams, has been directly linked to a sometimes fatal disease that occurs in patients with renal insufficiency, called nephrogenic systemic fibrosis (NSF) or nephrogenic fibrosing dermopathy (NFD).


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