Introduction – 10.5 Tesla MRI
Innovations change medical practices and healthcare in an ever-evolving dimension. Medical history was made by the University of Minnesota when scientists performed the world’s first magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the whole human body at 10.5 Tesla using a Siemens MAGNETOM 10.5 Tesla MRI, developed in 2013 and funded by the University of Minnesota and National Institute of Health, one of the world’s most advanced research centers for health.
Ref: https://www.nih.gov/
The Siemens MAGNETOM 10.5 was developed at the Siemens research laboratory in Germany. The purpose of the research and development of the 10.5 Tesla MRI was to compare it to the 7.0T by evaluating the performance of the transmit/receive functions using similar dipole antenna array configurations.
Ref: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5191924/
The Design of the 10.5 Tesla MRI
The design specifications of the 10.5 Tesla MRI consist of three major parts:
. Magnet (as Agilent)
. 32 receive channels
. Whole body gradients
In MRI technology, the length of the magnetic conductor plays an important role in the resonance images produced. The 10.5 Tesla MRI incorporates the use of Nb Ti 433 km as its conductor length with a ramp time to be determined (TBD).
Other features of the 10.5 Tesla magnet include:
Weight: 110 tons
Length: 4.1m
Width: 3.2m
Temperature: 3K
Bore diameter: 88cm
Homogeneity: greater than 0.07 ppm/25cm
Passively shielded
The features of the 32 receive channels include:
. 16-channel (2kW/channel)w/RF power amplifier
. 8 kW broadband w/RF power amplifier
Whole Body Gradients
The features of the whole body gradients include:
. 200 T/m/s maximum slew rate
. 60 cm open bore
. 2nd and 3rd-order shims (20A/channel)
. 70 mT/m maximum amplitude
Ref: https://www.cmrr.umn.edu/magnets/105t88.shtml
The Clinical Value of 10.5 Tesla MRI Full Body Scanning
In laymen’s terms, the 10.5 Tesla MRI performs full body scans. Previous MRI equipment allowed scans only of particular parts of the body.
The 10.5 Tesla MRI accomplishes the task of major types of examinations such as cancer detection. The 10.5 Tesla MRI an exam for head, chest, neck, pelvis and abdomen provides full scan capability.
It can also detect tumors in organs like the kidneys, pancreas, uterus, ovaries, brain, lungs and prostate to name a few of the types of full-bodyscans.
The National Institute of Health has reported that this particular type of MRI has grown in popularity due to its lack of ionizing radiation, high sensitivity and detection specificity of malignant and vascular diseases.
It is highly useful in soft tissue spatial resolution as well as nephrotoxicity and multiplanarity. As such, the benefit of the 10.5 Tesla MRI is early detection of diseases of the elderly and children.
This type of MRI is non invasive and causes far less stress in patients. Previously, when this equipment was first introduced, scans took one hour. Today, these scans can be performed in 10 to 20 minutes. It is expected that in the future the 10.5 Tesla MRI will replace CT scans as a method of screening for diseases.
Ref: https://www.medscape.org/viewarticle/478330