Software for stress-free scans

Two new technologies to enhance magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) could help make the experience of scanning less stressful and provide sharper images. Both techniques — one from Siemens, the other from the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics — reduce the need for the MRI subject to remain completely still during the scan.

The Siemens technology is a piece of software called syngo Blade, and works by using the MRI machine to take rapid low-resolution images at regular intervals throughout the scan. The imager’s processing system combines the low-resolution images, calculating how the patient moved during the scan, then uses this data to construct a high-resolution image as if the patient had kept still.

Siemens believes the syngo Blade technology is particularly useful for conducting MRI scans on children, who find it very hard to keep still. Currently, one in three children under ten years-old have to be sedated during MRI scans. It will also make it easier to produce scans of people who have neurological conditions which make them tremble uncontrollably, and to produce images of the lungs — currently, patients have to hold their breath to produce a clear MRI of the respiratory system.