Greg Freiherr has reported on developments in radiology since 1983. He runs the consulting service, The Freiherr Group.

Blog | March 22, 2013

MR “Fingerprinting” Promises Quick Screen for Disease

Only one radiological modality – mammography – is used today for screening. Yet, as America hurdles toward preventive medicine, screening is where it will be at. Now researchers in Cleveland are floating the idea of using MRI as a standard procedure in annual checkups. 

This is not the MRI of the present, which sequesters patients inside a superconducting magnet for a half hour or more. This is a quick, radically new kind of MR – the MR equivalent of fingerprinting – that might one day scan whole patients for early signs of cancer, multiple sclerosis and heart disease in just a few minutes. And it can be done on a standard high-field scanner.

One of the investigators, Mark Griswold, Ph.D., a radiology professor at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, says he and his colleagues “had to give up everything we knew about MRI and start over.”

Their work appeared March 13 in the online edition of the UK journal Nature, itself a nontraditional way of getting the word out on a radiological development. The president and CEO of Siemens Healthcare North America, which has been underwriting the research, believes this new technique could have broad ramifications for patients in five or ten years.

It’s taken a decade for the Cleveland team to get where they are now, doing much of the developmental work on a Siemens Espree 1.5T scanner. Scans done with the new technique reveal a fingerprint of tissue health, Griswold says, comprised of what might appear to be a cacophony of MR signals. These are produced by varying different parts of the electromagnetic fields that the Cleveland researchers use to probe the tissue. The signals carry information about key physical properties of the tissues. The signals are analyzed, quantified and charted to reveal patterns associated with health or specific diseases and their degree of progression.

In their Nature paper, the researchers report that MR fingerprinting “provides an alternative way to quantitatively detect and analyze complex changes that can represent physical alterations of a substance or early indicators of disease.”

If their preliminary results hold up, MR fingerprinting would be the first truly novel development coming out of MR in decades. And the timing couldn’t be better, given the push for healthcare reform and its emphasis on cost reduction, disease prevention and early treatment. 


Related Content

News | RSNA

December 1, 2023 — The Society of Breast Imaging (SBI) announced that Elizabeth Morris, MD, has been selected as the SBI ...

Time November 30, 2023
arrow
News | RSNA

November 30, 2023 — Breast cancer mortality is significantly reduced when women regularly attend screening mammograms ...

Time November 30, 2023
arrow
News | Breast Imaging

November 29, 2023 — A deep learning artificial intelligence (AI) model that was developed using only mammogram image ...

Time November 29, 2023
arrow
News | RSNA

November 28, 2023 — iCAD, Inc., a global medical technology company developing cancer-detection solutions, will present ...

Time November 28, 2023
arrow
News | Artificial Intelligence

November 6, 2023 — Lunit, a leading provider of AI-powered solutions for cancer diagnostics and therapeutics, is set to ...

Time November 06, 2023
arrow
Feature | Breast Imaging | By Laura Heacock, MS, MD

Breast cancer remains a significant health concern, responsible for more than 600,000 deaths annually. Early detection ...

Time November 03, 2023
arrow
Feature | ACR | By Christine Book

October 31, 2023 — As another Breast Cancer Awareness Month comes to a close, Imaging Technology News is sharing ...

Time October 31, 2023
arrow
News | Women's Health

October 6, 2023 — Lunit, a leading provider of AI-powered solutions for cancer diagnostics and therapeutics, and Leeds ...

Time October 06, 2023
arrow
News | Mammography

September 22, 2023 — Hologic Inc. and Bayer announced an international partnership to deliver contrast-enhanced ...

Time September 22, 2023
arrow
Feature | Breast Imaging | By Susan Harvey, MD, FSBI

In countries with organized screening programs, regular breast cancer screening has been a crucial tool in the clinician ...

Time September 22, 2023
arrow
Subscribe Now