Herckleperckle
Member
11-20-2003
| Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - 7:28 am
Source: Ivanhoe.com Reported October 11, 2006 New Way to Use MRI Scans Could Cut Diagnosis Time By Vivian Richardson, Ivanhoe Health Correspondent CHICAGO (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- If you've ever had a MRI scan, you've learned a lesson in patience. Lying perfectly still for up to an hour while the machine works is difficult for most people ... unless they are sedated. Now, a new way to use the information collected by MRI machines could have you in and out of the doctor's office in minutes. Doctors using the technology say patients can be on their way to a treatment in weeks, or even months, less than current diagnostic imaging technologies allow. The new VOLUMAP software system converts MRI data into a three-dimensional picture of what's going on inside a patient's body. Current systems give doctors dozens and dozens of flat pictures of just slices of the patient's anatomy. Roger De Filippo, M.D., is using the VOLUMAP software system to diagnose urologic abnormalities in children at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. He told Ivanhoe the system allows him to "swim" through the patient's body and see exactly what needs to be done to correct a problem. "A lot of these patients would present much later in life, for example, with a defective kidney or some other problem, which could have given them significant morbidity, in other words they could have been quite sick with it," said Dr. De Filippo. And because the process is so fast -- five to 10 minutes versus 45 minutes to an hour for current MRI scans -- he can image very young patients with little or no sedation. The system can reduce the number of tests a patient needs before doctors make a diagnosis, according to Dr. De Filippo. Another benefit: MRI scans don't use radiation, unlike CT scans. The information can also be made available to physicians wherever they can access a computer. "Now a surgeon sitting at a laptop is free to look through a patient's anatomy," says Paul Kokorowski, M.D., a fourth-year resident at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. He explained the 3-D images allow surgeons to see exactly what they will encounter when they cut into a patient. "I don't think, as a surgeon, you can ever have enough information before you step into the operating room." Right now, the software system is being used at three centers, including Children's Hospital Los Angeles and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Some of the drawbacks of the system include doctors' unfamiliarity with MRI and cost. MRI machines are more expensive than some other imaging systems, like ultrasound, for medical centers to operate. SOURCE: Ivanhoe interview with Roger De Filippo, M.D., assistant professor of urology at Children's Hospital Los Angeles and Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles; Paul Kokorowski, M.D., fourth-year resident at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, at the American College of Surgeons 2006 Clinical Congress in Chicago, Oct. 8-12, 2006
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