Articles
Electromagnetic Simulation Cuts Time To Develop New MRI Coil By Two-Thirds
July 13, 2009
•Case Study: Electromagnetic Simulation Cuts Time To Develop New MRI Coil By Two-Thirds
By Remcom, Inc.
The University of Pennsylvania recently asked MR Medical Solutions, a producer of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) coils, to develop a coil for a their 7.0T scanner designed specially for imaging the human head. The new 7-Tesla MRI machine is being used by researchers to develop new methods of diagnosing and treating diseases. The university asked MR Medical Solutions to meet very challenging requirements for the performance, uniformity and safety of the coil. In the past, MR Medical Solutions engineers would have had to spend six months building and testing each of at least four different prototypes to find a design that would meet these tough design requirements. Instead, the company's engineers used electromagnetic simulation software to evaluate the performance of many more designs to optimize the coil prior to building the first prototype. "Electromagnetic simulation with XFdtd®, a 3D electromagnetic solver provided by Remcom Inc., helps us design better MRI coils and has reduced the typical development time from 27 to nine months," said Fahad Alradady and William Monski, President of MR Medical Solutions in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Higher static magnetic fields are being used in MRI machines in order to increase the resolution of resulting images. Earlier generations of MRI machines primarily detected variations in the concentration and physical characteristics of hydrogen in the body. The latest 7-Telsla machines permit the detection of many more elements such as carbon, sodium and phosphorus, providing the potential to provide earlier diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of diseases. Researchers at the University Of Pennsylvania School Of Medicine have pioneered the use of 7-Telsa MRI machines as diagnostic tools. For example, they successfully detected mild cognitive impairment (MCI) using new MRI techniques to analyze tissue composition and structure in the brain. Using this technique, researchers were able to detect, with 100% accuracy, those patients in the study with cognitive impairment from those with normal cognitive function. The study also predicted, with 90% accuracy, those patients with increasing onset of MCI. Results of the research were published in a recent issue of Neurobiology of Aging.
Click Here To Download:•Case Study: Electromagnetic Simulation Cuts Time To Develop New MRI Coil By Two-Thirds
