April 11, 2011 – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared a series of surface coils designed for use with a wide bore magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system. GE Healthcare’s GEM (Geometry Embracing Method) Suite, used with the Optima MR450w 1.5T system, helps reposition patients less often and covers more anatomy.
It also provides radiologists more clinical options and can give administrators more efficiency through higher throughput and system utilization.
The coils are made of a thinner, lightweight, flexible material that can be used with a variety of body types, allowing easier patient positioning for more patients with less pressure. The lighter materials offer technologists 38 percent less weight to handle, and the variable element design is tailored to receive signals from specific parts of the patient’s anatomy.
The suite comprises a set of receive-only radio frequency surface coils. Covering 98 percent of all exam types, the GEM coils can be used individually or combined to provide head to toe patient coverage. It enables automatic selection of the configuration that best fits the selected region of interest. It includes a 205-cm scanning range and feet-first scanning in all supported exams.
“Our new GEM Suite is another advance allowing the Optima MR450w wide bore scanner to offer outstanding levels of patient comfort,” said Jacques Coumans, general manager, premium MR GE Healthcare. “While GEM Suite was designed with the patient experience in mind, it also offers significant benefits to technologists, radiologists and administrators. Ultimately, it’s all about doing more with less.”
For more information: www.gehealthcare.com
April 09, 2026 
