New 1.5 T MR Technology Designed to Enhance Performance and Patient Experience

Two new 1.5-T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners have been engineered to tackle the demand for increased performance and will provide reduced total cost of ownership for the healthcare facility while providing a comfortable experience for the patient.

GE Healthcare’s (Chalfont St. Giles, UK) Optima MR360 Advance and Brivo MR355 Inspire systems have recently received 510(k) clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The systems were redesigned with new enclosures embodying GE’s humanizing MR approach.


“Overall, I was pleasantly surprised with the image quality, especially the quality of abdomen and pelvis images, which are excellent when compared to 3T,” said Tamotsu Nomura, chief technologist at Ishikawa Hospital (Osaka, Japan), who owns the first Optima MR360 Advance in the country. Dr. Hubertus Gloger, from Verbundklinikum Landkreis Ansbach Klinik Rothenburg, who owns the first system in Germany, said, “After a smooth and fast installation, my radiographers learned very quickly how to scan, including those with minimal MR experience.”

The Optima MR360 Advance is designed to provide a relaxed patient experience and advanced performance. This system offers a newly designed Express range of coils with 16-channel head and neck arrays, anterior arrays, and flex coils that enable faster workflow. Furthermore, the Optima MR360 Advance is available with a range of 18 new clinical applications including the Needle Free suite of applications that strives to improve patient experience by reducing the need for biopsy, contrast, and sedation. The Optima MR360 Advance also features the OpTix RF, which offers analog to digital signal inside the scan room to minimize noise and signal degradation resulting in high-quality clinical images, but away from the patient to enhance patient safety.

The Brivo MR355 Inspire is designed to be an easy-to-use 1.5 T MR system. This system also features OpTix RF as well as Ready Interface, which streamlines workflow by offering simplified control of the scan parameters that may allow for greater consistency from technologist to technologist and ultimately from patient to patient. The Brivo MR355 Inspire system is engineered to combine the diagnostic benefits of high-performance MR technology with a low total cost of ownership.

Both the Optima MR360 and the Brivo MR355 are ecomagination-certified and are engineered to operate with low operating costs by using eco-friendly technologies such as water-cooling systems, efficient gradients, super capacitors, and power distribution units.

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