By: Dr. Philip Chao

We are offering the following information to help you make a more educated decision when it comes to choosing an MRI center for your family:

SPEED– 3T MRI is MRI done at 3 Tesla; the highest magnet strength for MRI in clinical practice. This means more detail than MRI’s done at lower field strengths and up to 4 times faster.  Sample imaging times at 3T can be as little as 1 minute per scan even if it is a small part such as a wrist.  The same scan would take 9 minutes in a lesser quality 0.3T OPEN MRI.  Wrist and foot MRIs are super high resolution and obtained in 1-4 minutes on the 3T.  The pictures are larger than life.  If your doctor orders an MRI of a small part, keep in mind that other scanners can miss the finding that is causing pain.  A 1.5T 18 channel scanner is so fast it can complete a lumbar spine study in 5 minutes.

SAFETY– Our MRI contrasts have never caused a single case of nephrogenic systemic sclerosis.   There are 6 contrasts marketed in the U.S.  Only one of the safer contrasts can be used in each of the different field strength MRI machines.   We use Prohance at 3T and Multihance at 1.5T.  You should ask your MRI provider which contrast their center uses and ask for facts on how safe the contrast is.  Also ask   your doctor.

COMFORT– A 70 cm (30 inch) OPEN BORE scanner is more open than a permanent magnet 0.3T scanner which is only 19 inches wide.  The so called standup MRI scanner is only18 inches wide.  At 3T MRI our open MRI is 30 inches wide in our OPEN MRI, which is the most spacious MRI in the world, which has a weight limit of 550 pounds. Many patients, who are claustrophobic in other MRI scanners, can now be scanned without sedation at our facility.  Siemens 18 channel Espree is the most comfortable MRI scan.

Doctors and patients are totally unaware that MRI is much more flexible than CT.  CT is basically one contrast.  We just did an abdomen MRI in a patient who had had 4 other CAT scans with huge radiation dose to their body and a risk of causing cancer of about 1 in 250.  The OPEN BORE MRI study showed 8 liver lesions totally missed by the CAT scan.  MRI studies can have hundreds of different image contrast without injections.  One type of image contrast is called diffusion weighted imaging.  We do this on both of our scanners at no additional charge.  In the brain this shows early strokes.  In the body it shows tumors of the GI tract and of the kidneys. We found two pancreatic cancers last year.  We found several patients with liver mets using this technique.   In the past year we diagnosed two kidney tumors based on their appearance on DWI.  No other MRI facility in Delaware does DWI and presumably might have missed all of these tumors.  We do it on our abdomen studies for free.  Siemens calls this technology REVEAL because it shows cancers as bright white lesions.  CT and ultrasound do not have a similar technology.  Another remarkable contrast is diffusion tensor imaging.  This is remarkably useful in patients with automobile or blast trauma causing traumatic brain injury.  The microscopic damage to your brain can be detected using this advanced technique.  The CT scan or regular MRI scan will show nothing and the DTI image will show damage to your brain.  The last contrast I will mention is called SWI (susceptibility weighted imaging).  This allows us to see hemorrhage in your body.  Microscopic bleeding in your brain can cause headaches, memory loss and other symptoms and might be invisible on an ordinary MRI scanner.  Using SWI we can see the damage to your brain which might be missed elsewhere.  If we have to use contrast ours is the safest in the world.  Our MR contrast does not   hurt your kidneys.

NEWS– In patients who have MS – repetitive MRIs are often done.  But the patients should realize that 3T shows up to 40% more lesions.  Also a special and new CCSVI study can show venous anomalies which are just now being discovered.  At our facility we offer the leading edge of MRI imaging.  The closest CCSVI facility in the northern hemisphere is in Quebec City.   Our facility is superior as it offers both 3T imaging and also 1.5T OPEN BORE 70 cm imaging.  Both scanners are up to date and the most powerful in Delaware.  We soon will install a 32 channel 3T system in Rehoboth Beach.

NO IONIZING RADIATION. MRI is remarkable because it lets us create images of the human body without using ionizing radiation.  You can do repeat studies over and over without any harm to the patient.  CT scans blast you with xrays.  In some cases the dosages are greater than that received by witnesses to the atomic bomb in Hiroshima.  There was a recent finding by the FDA that some scanners inexplicably deliver up to 20 times the ordinary dose of xrays.  In these patients in California the radiation dose was so high that the patients actually lost hair and might get early cataracts from a CTA (computerized axial tomography angiogram and perfusion study.)  In most cases a CT study can be replaced by a 3T MRI study.

QUALITY– The increased signal to noise of the 3T scanner improves all MRI scans.  Last night our facility scanned a young gymnast whose big toe of his right foot was painful. He had had three MRI scans done elsewhere at 1.5T.  All three scans failed to show any abnormality that might cause pain.  Our scan with and without the safest MR contrast was positive.  It was actually positive in the first 2 minutes of the scan.  The increased detail allowed by the small parts coil we use also makes the images we acquire larger than life.  It is of note that three other facilities failed to show the abnormality.  Most physicians and patients are unaware that there is such a difference in quality in MRI scans.

ADVANCED SOFTWARE– One of the advantages of newer 3T MRI and 1.5T MRI scanners is advanced software.  BLADE is special motion correction software that literally changes the image from night to day if the patient is unable to hold still.  Most older scanners do not have PROPELLER or BLADE to freeze motion.  Patients who had tried an MRI scan and gotten results that are suboptimal should search for a 1.5T Espree scanner and ask if they have BLADE, REVEAL, NATIVE and BEAT.  We also offer IV sedation at no additional charge for those extremely claustrophobic patients.  It is 100% successful if the patient allows us to sedate them.

CHOICE. You also can choose your MRI facility.  We advise you to choose carefully as a bad MRI can miss many things.  And when it is done at lower field strength the images are blurry and can miss many lesions that can cause your symptoms. We have hundreds of patients who could not be scanned elsewhere who had a very diagnostic scan at our BEST OPEN MRI facility.  Patients also travel to our facility from California and Florida.   This is because in addition to the highest quality we also offer very fair pricing.

Best Open MRI
302 838 7800
www.safecontrast.com

Dr. Philip Chao graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Yale University and was Scholar of the House. He continued his studies at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, receiving his medical degree in 1983. After a transitional internship year at the Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown NY, Dr. Chao did his residency in Radiology at Brooklyn’s SUNY Health Science Center (1984-1987), where he became Chief Resident. He stayed on to complete a fellowship in Neuroradiology (1987-1988). Dr. Chao has been interested in MRI technology since its very beginning – the first MRI scan took place in 1981 while he was pursuing his medical studies. The University of Pennsylvania, where Dr. Chao was both a Body MRI Fellow (1988-1990) and a Neuroradiology Fellow (1989-1990), was at the heart of the development of this technology and Dr. Chao was able to work with pioneers in MRI on the first GE Signa 1.5T (tesla) scanner. His advanced research and specializations complete, Dr. Chao left the University of Pennsylvania for a position as Director of MRI in Wilmington DE – a position he held for 14 years. Dr. Chao eventually left that position to create the best MRI center in Delaware, using the very latest technology: 3T MRI. While 3T (tesla) scanners have been used for scanning research patients since 2002, these advanced, more powerful MRI scanners only became available for clinical use in 2004. Dr. Chao worked hard to bring 3T technology to Delaware and in February 2007, MRI Consultants, LLC began operating the first 3T scanner in the State. 3T is the newest horizon for MRI.