By Dr. John Feller
The reputation of open MRI is rooted in the performance of low-fi eld systems. While the openness of these systems is attractive to patients, low-fi eld MR images may not be diagnostic. Their suboptimal performance has been a drag on the reputation of open MRI, souring many referring physicians on its use. This created a challenge for us following the acquisition of the 1.2T Oasis.Although the high-fi eld open system delivers high-fi eld quality images (in the case of some orthopedic scans, images that are even better than those by 1.5T systems) its performance was not appreciated by physicians who refer patients to us. We, therefore, had to “rebrand” open MRI to associate the Oasis with good image quality. We decided to perform brain, cervical, spine, knee and ankle scans on both our newly acquired Oasis and a conventional 1.5T system installed at another of our sites, and to anonymize the images. We then took those images to the offi ces of our referring physicians and asked them which images were from the high-fi eld open MRI Oasis and which were from the cylindrical 1.5T.When they couldn’t tell the diff erence, it proved to them that the image quality of the Oasis was equivalent to that of a conventional closed system. Through this, and the spreading clinical reputation of high-fi eld open with its increased patient comfort, demand for Oasis has quickly grown. Today, on our busiest days, we scan as many as 26 patients.
From three outpatient locations in California’s Coachella Valley, physician-owned Desert Medical Imaging (DMI) off ers advanced radiology services including PET/CT, CT, ultrasound, virtual colonoscopy and high-fi eld open MRI. Oasis has supported high-performance open MRI at the Indio, California, site since 2011, including those of the brain, spine, joints, abdomen, prostate and breast.
The high-fi eld open MRI excels at orthopedic scans, especially off -center joints, according to medical director Dr. John F. Feller, a board-certifi ed diagnostic radiologist sub-specializing in orthopedic and sports medicine imaging. Its ability to handle virtually any type of exam in an open design may be its most attractive features for DMI, where patient comfort, convenience and well-being are top concerns.
“Anything that is not in the midline—like a shoulder, wrist, hand, fi ngers—is better on the Oasis than on a closed-bore 1.5 Tesla system,” said Feller, who is DMI medical director and co-founder. “But there is no MRI exam that we cannot do well on the Oasis.”
