May 5, 2008 - GE received FDA clearance for its new Signa MR750 3.0T scanner that delivers up to 60 percent additional anatomical coverage and resolution unit per time, also allowing for up to five times the imaging performance over previous generations.
The system aims to extend the freedom for advanced application development, including a routine liver exam in 15 minutes and a full breast exam in two sequences. The Signa MR750 boasts a newly designed RF transmit system, maximizing performance with a 17 percent gain in scanning efficiency. In addition, the system includes the GE-exclusive Optical RF technology that reportedly adds up to 27 percent higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) over conventional, nonoptical MR receivers by reducing electrical noise and increasing signal detection.
When combined with GE’s use of high-density surface coils, the optical receive chain is said to be a critical path for ensuring clear signal reception and data analysis. To ensure that the high-density approach will always be maintained, the Signa MR750 3.0T architecture is scalable to 128 channels of simultaneous data acquisition.
The Signa MR750 features a new parallel imaging technique, Auto Calibrating Reconstruction for Cartesian imaging (ARC), that reduces specific absorption rate (SAR); features auto-calibration that helps avoid collecting external sensitivity map; is reportedly less sensitive to field-of-view (FOV) positioning with a tight FOV; contains clinically practical reconstruction times for continuous scanning and has a workflow simplification tool that can reportedly be seamlessly integrated into sequences without the need for separate calibration scans.
The new system also features LAVA-IDEAL, a dual-echo acquisition technique that is designed to provide consistent, detailed, three-dimensional abdominal images in one breath-hold. By allowing the user to select the output image types-- in-phase, opposed-phase, water and fat-- LAVA-IDEAL has the ability to produce four image contrasts with only one scan. With this new 3.0T application, clinicians can now conduct a complete liver exam in 15 minutes.
VIBRANT-IDEAL is a new application that allows for fat-free breast imaging with high spatio-temporal resolution. This application catches the shortest in- and out-of phase echoes to keep scan times comparable to single echo acquisitions even though twice the amount of data is collected.
VIBRANT-IDEAL reportedly optimizes acquisition with a high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for acquiring high quality water and fat images. This capability lets the user prescribe thinner slices for high spatial resolution imaging.
PROPELLER 2.0 is said to enable strong performance in all neuro imaging planes with the implementation of the No Phase Wrap (NPW) technique. NPW allows virtually ghost-artifact-free, motion-immune scans in sagittal, coronal, axial and oblique planes. Since this technique effectively deals with the aliasing artifact, PROPELLER 2.0 is now more robust performing small field-of-view (FOV) scans.
For more information: www.gehealthcare.com
July 25, 2024 
