The Most Powerful MRI in the World Set to Go into Operation

The University of Illinois at Chicago now has the most powerful medical magnetic resonance imaging machine in the world. The machine, known as the 9.4 Tesla has just completed its safety trials and when it is put into use, the physicians will be able to see what is going on in the brain in real time.

The 9.4T is expected to be the start of a whole new world for MRI technology. It will enable them to watch metabolic process as they are happening and make it easier for the physician to customize the course of treatment for each patient.

For example, they envision a cancer specialist will be able to customize radiation therapy because they can watch the brain tumor's response to the treatment. With the current equipment, it can take weeks to find out of the therapy is working at shrinking the tumor. However, with the 9.4T, they will be able to see every individual cell and be able to determine if they are dying even before the tumor starts to shrink.

The field strength of the magnet in the 9.4T is more than three times what it is in the current top of the line units. It is the first one that is large enough to be able to not only scan the head, and at the same time see the brain.

The way the current type of MRI works is by visualizing water molecules in order to track the biochemical processes. ON the other hand, the 9.4T looks at the sodium molecules instead and this gives them the advantage of being able to keep track of a part of the cellular mechanism in the brain that plays a big part in energy consumption.

The first ever MRI had a strength of .05T and the current one are at 8T. The limits are set by the FDA based on safety data.

There were 25 healthy volunteers in the safety trial, 12 men and 13 women. All of them had a real scan and a mock one as a control. The scans were given in random order so they did not know which one they were getting. When they received the mock scan, they used a recording to simulate the sound of a real scanner.