4 ms·

Fantastic!! Accelerating MRI with ML is an idea I've had in my little idea book for years and I'm delighted to see it getting some mainstream attention! It's a

Fantastic!! Accelerating MRI with ML is an idea I've had in my little idea book for years and I'm delighted to see it getting some mainstream attention! It's a serious technical challenge but the benefits could be enormous. IIRC the vast majority of the cost of an MRI is the amortized cost of the imager, so faster scans should hopefully directly reduce the cost to patients, perhaps to the point that regular full-body MRI scans for preventative healthcare could be feasible.

Waterluvian 7y ago
> perhaps to the point that regular full-body MRI scans for preventative healthcare could be feasible. This is an interesting problem. Speaking with a number of physicians among the family, there's a perspective that having a population performing all these tests can possibly cause more problems than they solve. If the goal is to holistically make a person healthy and happy, discovering diagnoses that have no practical effects on someone's well-being can result in reducing their well-being just by knowing about it. Humans are notoriously bad this way. Tell someone their liver is somewhat different from an average adult liver and they'll start assigning symptoms to it.
- andbberger 7y ago
  I don't know, that line of thought seems myopic to me. I'm more thinking, wow you could really do a lot in the way of automated diagnoses if you had longitudinal data sets like that.
  - Waterluvian 7y ago
    Yeah. Certainly not saying it's an open and shut case on the right way to test. Obviously we do whole-population preventative medicine for many things.
- lostlogin 7y ago
  It’s worse than this. Unnecessary biopsies, extra tests with associated risks and misdiagnosis etc are all part of any screening procedure. Whole body MR scanning also lacks the resolution and quality of dedicated body site scans. As with everything, if you ask a good question you get a better answer. ‘Is there a problem in this person?’ Is not a good question.
99052882514569 7y ago
"IIRC the vast majority of the cost of an MRI is the amortized cost of the imager" This is certainly false for clinical MR imaging in Canada. The biggest component is the cost of interpreting the scan, i.e. the radiologist's time. "regular full-body MRI scans for preventative healthcare could be feasible." What's the point? What are you looking for? What is the false positive rate on that? Screening for the sake of screening is a mirage[0]. [0] https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/a-skeptical-look-at-screening-tests/ https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/a-skeptical-look-at-screeni...

Waterluvian 7y ago

> perhaps to the point that regular full-body MRI scans for preventative healthcare could be feasible. This is an interesting problem. Speaking with a number of physicians among the family, there's a perspective that having a population performing all these tests can possibly cause more problems than they solve. If the goal is to holistically make a person healthy and happy, discovering diagnoses that have no practical effects on someone's well-being can result in reducing their well-being just by knowing about it. Humans are notoriously bad this way. Tell someone their liver is somewhat different from an average adult liver and they'll start assigning symptoms to it.

andbberger 7y ago
I don't know, that line of thought seems myopic to me. I'm more thinking, wow you could really do a lot in the way of automated diagnoses if you had longitudinal data sets like that.
- Waterluvian 7y ago
  Yeah. Certainly not saying it's an open and shut case on the right way to test. Obviously we do whole-population preventative medicine for many things.
lostlogin 7y ago
It’s worse than this. Unnecessary biopsies, extra tests with associated risks and misdiagnosis etc are all part of any screening procedure. Whole body MR scanning also lacks the resolution and quality of dedicated body site scans. As with everything, if you ask a good question you get a better answer. ‘Is there a problem in this person?’ Is not a good question.

99052882514569 7y ago

"IIRC the vast majority of the cost of an MRI is the amortized cost of the imager" This is certainly false for clinical MR imaging in Canada. The biggest component is the cost of interpreting the scan, i.e. the radiologist's time. "regular full-body MRI scans for preventative healthcare could be feasible." What's the point? What are you looking for? What is the false positive rate on that? Screening for the sake of screening is a mirage[0]. [0] https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/a-skeptical-look-at-screening-tests/ https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/a-skeptical-look-at-screeni...