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FDA clears ‘world’s first’ portable, low-cost MRI
- ISL 7y agoFrom a quick survey of the article, it sounds like this instrument is likely to be using conventional electromagnets. Is that correct?
- philipkglass 7y agoPermanent magnets, according to this article: https://www.fiercebiotech.com/medtech/fda-clears-world-s-first-portable-bedside-mri https://www.fiercebiotech.com/medtech/fda-clears-world-s-fir... Small permanent magnet NMR spectroscopy units first showed up in chemistry about 10 years ago: https://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/11/prweb4732684.htm https://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/11/prweb4732684.htm
- ISL 7y agoAh. Cool. Makes sense, as the field is clean and stable. NIST's Kibble balance does the same. Thanks!
- hinkley 7y agoMy understanding is that MRI’s use two magnetic fields in opposition. A strong field that is a superconducting magnet of fixed number of Teslas, and an electromagnet that is pulsed to cancel out part of the field. The pulsing creates an echo in the water molecules in the body which is then painstakingly processed into an image. That thunking noise has to do with the pulsing. I forget what it’s called now but you can build a permanent magnet of upward if .5 or 1T by packing a bunch of keystone-shaped rare earth magnets with differing field alignments into a high tensile strength retaining ring. This causes the fields to be additive, but God help you if you manage to break the damn thing. I watched a video on how to safely put two large rare earth magnets together without shattering them, and YouTube recommended an infomercial by some company at the high end of Tesla ratings for permanent magnets. It was kinda nuts.
- jackcosgrove 7y agoFrom what I saw of this at RSNA, they were only demonstrating head scans. The scanning volume is big enough for a head but not a full body. The magnet is low-power enough that you could walk within a few feet of it during operation without danger. Cool device which could make MRI scans more accessible, and also paves the way for specialized scanners that only focus on a particular body part. I like medical tech that does a "good enough" job in exchange for being much cheaper than fully featured devices.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoThis would still be hugely helpful for brain imaging en route to a medical facility, similar to what’s being done with experimental mobile stroke units, so medical practitioners are ready to act upon a patient’s arrival.
- mohn 7y agoMaybe. MRI is not the preferred brain imaging modality in emergency situations, X-ray computed tomography is. Consider patients who are unconscious (or awake but unreliable) due to head trauma, stroke, etc. You can't do a proper MR safety screening interview to find out if they have ferrous metal or other conductive objects in their head. The magnetic field can potentially torque an old aneurysm clip or piece of shrapnel, and the radio frequency excitation field can cause heating and burns if there are antenna-like conductors present. MRI is slow and the images are easy to ruin if the subject moves around too much during the long acquisition time, so bouncing around in the back of an ambulance isn't the ideal setting. A 3D volume with whole head coverage and suitably fine spatial resolution can take several minutes to acquire, versus just a few seconds for X-ray CT. The MRI signal to noise ratio is also proportional to field strength, so low field systems like this are at a disadvantage for image quality. On the plus side, low field does mean less risk of moving ferrous material inside the subject.
- 01100011 7y ago> You can't do a proper MR safety screening interview Are we really not capable of detecting such dangers externally without patient input? It seems like detecting even small pieces of metal would be relatively trivial.
- hkiely 7y ago“According to Connecticut-based Hyperfine, their machine will cost $50,000, which is 20-times cheaper than traditional systems, runs on 35-times less power and weights 10 times less than normal 1.5T MRI machines.” I believe GE came out with MRI machines a while back that were specific for limbs. This really does not seem much different other than it is on wheels and you can possibly position over a torso in a bed if it isn’t metal.
- frostburg 7y agoSmall models used to scan lab rats also exist (a friend does research on brain damage prevention and I was wondering if they let her use human-rated machines for murine models).
- mattkrause 7y agoThe small-bore machines they use for rodents have much stronger fields: 9.4 and 11T field strengths are pretty common. This is a lot easier to achieve in a small bore. For comparison, the “standard” research scanners for humans are usually 3T, with 7T scanners becoming somewhat more available. That said, many universities do let people use the human scanners for other research. It’s kind of a pain to do with animals, because you’re paying $500 an hour while you scrub the room down afterward and wait for the air to cycle, but it’s the only way to scan larger animals (primates, pigs, dogs, etc).
- amluto 7y agoA hospital billed my insurance $15k for a single MRI series once. This machine could pay for itself very quickly.
- hughes 7y agoEspecially if you keep billing insurance $15k to use it.
- bawana 7y agoThere is a remarkable asymmetry between physicians who take risk to read the mri and are paid a few hundred dollars and the corporate stooges who run the hospital and charge whatever they like. And yet with such a willing supply of doctors from abroad there is no end in sight.
- m3kw9 7y agoNFL gonna buy one of these per team
- fyfy18 7y agoHow does MRI compare to other techniques (e.g. CAT scans) for general diagnostics? Does it make sense to be used as a more routine diagnostics tool if there are many more machines available? In the US there are 37 MRI machines per million population, even in other relatively rich countries like France this is much lower at 14 per million population [0]. Is it just the cost of the machines, or are there drawbacks that limit their use as general purpose diagnostics tools? [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/282401/density-of-magnetic-resonance-imaging-units-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/282401/density-of-magnet...
- dillonmckay 7y agoIt would reduce their worker’s compensation insurance costs.
- jtlienwis 7y agoTen years ago I got an MRI when they were searching for kidney stone. I think the hospital charge was over $3000. I had one last year and the charge was less than $500. You can point to MRI as one of the success stories for technology in health care.
- semerda 7y agoWhich country? Doesn’t sound like a US hospital.
- jessriedel 7y agoYou can get a world class MRI in the Bay Area for $550 from SimonMed Imaging.
- melling 7y agoNow we just need a good AI to read it. This would be especially useful in the developing world.
- kranner 7y agoRadiologists are cheap and plentiful in the developing world, compared to MRI machines.
- melling 7y agoNope, that is incorrect. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_radiology https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_radiology https://www.forbes.com/sites/techonomy/2014/11/08/philippine-startup-takes-on-global-radiologist-shortage/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/techonomy/2014/11/08/philippine...
- kranner 7y agoFair rebuttal, but I don't know if medical cartels would allow AI to replace their limited supply of cardiologists so easily. It is quite cheap here in India already (got an orbital MRI last week for $105.10, including radiologist's fees; it can go as low as $40) but having it cheaper and more easily available would help a lot more people.
- tryptophan 7y agoI wonder what the resolution on these will be like. As I understand it, bigger magnets and more power = higher resolution. Will this thing have enough to be useful?
- dfox 7y agoThe reason for huge magnets is to drown out effects of external magnetic fields which would otherwise cause spatial uncertainty. For me this seems like something that can be partially compensated for in software postprocessing given fast enough scan rate.
- amluto 7y agoThe magnetic field is to shift the energy levels of the nuclear spin states. The transition energy is proportional to the applied field, and the wavelength of the RF field used for imaging is inversely proportional to the energy. So a stronger field gives a smaller wavelength and thus higher resolution.
- exikyut 7y agoOooh, in the same way that the higher 5G frequencies don't travel as far!
- ska 7y agoThis is really not correct. External fields are tiny relative to these fields, you have bigger issues with coupling and eddy currents. It’s not quite as simple as field strength equals resolution, but generally it is easier to achieve high resolution with higher main field strength. See for example mouse scanners at 12T
- 22c 7y agoIt's a ridiculous thought, but I couldn't help but think of the "Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Goods"[1] skit from "The Ten" where neighbours keep one-upping each other by buying CAT scan machines. It's really crazy to think you could almost have an MRI in your own home these days. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ten#Plot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ten#Plot
- carbocation 7y agoThis is great. There is a lot of work being done to figure out how much undersampling you can do on a typical MRI and reconstruct a good image. For typical scanners, this gets you faster scan times. It will be interesting to see how much those techniques translate into taking a super low-powered MRI and allow it to yield decent images. Whether or not such techniques are good for accurately detecting lesions seems to still be a bit of an open question. (It's less relevant to my particular research interests for now, but obviously extremely important for clinical use.) A lot of the fallout from over-imaging (especially when, like MRI, there is no ionizing radiation so the test itself isn't harmful) is due to physician behavior and standards of care. But those behaviors and standards can change over time. A bit tangential, but I suspect that at some point, we will think it anachronistic that cardiologists tried to visualize the heart's function by listening to its sounds with their ears.
- dontdoitpls 7y ago"what do you actually do here?" Why does the FDA get involved in medical equipment? Heck, if there is data, what's the point of spending literally millions of dollars to get approval?
- voldacar 7y agoI heard that ordinary MRI machines can't ever be powered off or they heat up and the expensive liquid helium boils off. How does this particular machine overcome this issue? Seems like it would be a huge problem for a portable MRI
- reubens 7y agoIf I understand it correctly, the machine uses permanent magnets rather than a giant solenoid. The magnetic field is way less strong (0.064 Tesla compared to at least 1 in most machines), but the machine doesn't have to generate heat while producing a magnetic field
- catblast 7y agoAn MRI magnet doesn’t produce heat while producing a magnetic field. That’s not why they are cooled. They are superconductors, the resistance is 0.
- duskwuff 7y ago> They are superconductors, the resistance is 0. So long as they stay under their critical temperature. If that changes… well, a lot of liquid helium is about to stop being liquid. And that's one of the reasons why a permanent-magnet MRI is so interesting -- it doesn't depend on a constant supply of power (for the helium cooler) and gaseous helium (to replace lost gas), so the system is portable, and maintenance costs are likely to be much lower.
- anonuser123456 7y agoI think fixed machines are like 1.4 - 3 Tesla field strength. The portable one is like .05 Tesla... So maybe it doesn't even use superconducting magnets. But you can get high temperature REBCO tape now and get super conductors that can be cooled with liquid nitrogen.
- blevs 7y agoMRI machines go up to 7T now.
- remarkEon 7y agoI don't work in medical devices per se, but I do work in hardware. I see lots of immediate uses for this. Pro-sports will obviously want it, the military will too, field hospitals in e.g. Africa. Lots of possibilities here. Can anyone tell me where this device will be manufactured?
- Amarok 7y agoFor a change, I can contribute something to HN without being out of my depth:) Background: I'm a doctor with 3 years experience in acute medicine. AMA Clearing some MRI misconceptions: 1. It's indicated ASAP in specific emergencies and will change how we manage them. For acute ischaemic stroke, it detects patients within the recomended time window for thrombolysis. Simply, it shows the cellular swelling in the brain, gives an estimate of the onset and we decide the risk/benefits of dissolving the clot. Second use, for cauda equina syndrome. Again we're looking for acute CNS tissue damage, this time from spinal chord compression, and the change in management is emergency neurosurgery (good luck getting them out of bed without an MRI) For herpes encephalitis, MRI is debatable because you can start empiric treatment. But I've seen it done. Another misconception for the first use scenario in stroke. The MRI sequences we're interested in only take 1-3min and CT doesn't help us. But in my experience the whole scan takes 2h to organize, so point of care MRI is a game changer. Every minute counts when you're saving brain tissue. And Lower definition with artifacts are acceptable because you're looking for gross changes in a critically unwell patient. Bonus: A report from when I managed my first suspected stroke as a junior doctor. "49yo lady day 1 post op for total knee replacement (elective admission). Commorbidities of hypertension, obesity and osteoarthritis. She was just started on apixaban and gabapentin as per protocol, when I was asked to see her for new onset upper limb bilateral tremor. On examining her I found the symptoms had started 1h ago. She was presenting bilateral upper limb ataxia as well, reflexes were reduced on the left and there was numbness corresponding to C4 dermatome. At this point I was worried about acute stroke whithin the 4h window for thrombolysis. I discussed the case with the acute stroke consultant and examined the patient with him. We requested an MRI brain to assess for acute posterior circulation stroke, because he thought time of onset was unclear (as per WAKE-UP protocol). I acompanied the patient to neuroradiology services. The MRI sequences we were most interested was DWI and FLAIR which only took a few minutes. We quickly scanned through the images noting there were was no DWI-FlAir mismatched high intensity signal areas within the brain parenchyma. This allowed us to rule out acute ischaemic stroke. 6h later the symptoms subsided and I was satisfied they were due to an adverse reaction to gabapentin."
- mdorazio 7y agoIt says the clearance includes head scanning, but could this also be used for things like orthopedics? Current MRIs are prohibitively expensive and bulky for all kinds of things outside head trauma that could benefit from tissue imaging.
- Gatsky 7y agoReally nice piece of work. The key patent makes for interesting reading [1]. They use neodymium permanent magnetic rings. I wonder if building a crude version of Hyperfine’s machine is within the realms of a DIY project. [1] http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=10222434.PN.&OS=PN/10222434&RS=PN/10222434 http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H...
- ihnorton 7y agoThe MGH Martinos Center has a very nice open source MRI page with hardware and software instructions to build a functional, low-resolution tabletop MRI (I think this is primarily targeting instructional use at a university level, so requires a fair amountof background): - https://www.opensourceimaging.org/project/instructional-tabletop-mri-scanner/ https://www.opensourceimaging.org/project/instructional-tabl... - https://tabletop.martinos.org/index.php/Main_Page https://tabletop.martinos.org/index.php/Main_Page
- petespeed 7y ago"To reserve your Hyperfine system(s), the following conditions apply: You must be an accredited US health care provider. System usage is approved for patients 2 years and older. Your institution must be able to supply a wired ethernet connection to the device once every 14 days."
- amelius 7y agoCurious about that last condition. What is it used for? And what bandwidth does it need?
- ObsoleteNerd 7y agoLicensing and/or updates?
- _Microft 7y agoI'm only familiar with other, not medical, devices and my guess would be that this is about firmware updates.
- chmod775 7y agoPortable is a relative term. Some hospitals in Germany actually have vehicles containing MRI units which they dispatch when a stroke is suspected.
- docdocgoose 7y agoReduced power and cost requirements are critical for this technology to be viable for low middle income country (LMIC) settings, particularly in rural areas. In many sub-Saharan countries, there are A handful in the country and use is complicated by unstable grids. High impact tech if use cases for these settings are sharpened.
- jawns 7y agoI was talking recently with a Haitian doctor, who said that in his entire country (of 11 million people), there is just one MRI machine. This new device seems like it will break down so many barriers, both in terms of cost and practicality, in Haiti and other developing countries. I hope it makes its way there!
- tinus_hn 7y agoI wonder how long it’ll take for these to appear at the airport checkpoints.
- aj7 7y agoRemarkable they have enough sensitivity at 0.064T. To me, that’s the underlying scientific breakthrough. It implies that that there are other, intermediate regimes that would not require bulky, expensive superconducting magnet.
- mentos 7y agoI wonder if it would be possible to up sample the images using AI/ML?