US-based Esaote has launched a new Weight-Bearing MRI system to increase diagnostic accuracy while performing musculoskeletal MRI examinations.
Featuring a touch screen display on the gantry, the G-scan Brio system's tilting MRI provides real-time images of the joint and the entire spine, either in clinostasis (supine) or in orthostasis (weight-bearing), as the magnet and patient can rotate from 0° to 90°.
International School of Musculoskeletal Ultrasound director and Nigrisoli United Hospitals diagnostic imaging department professor and chair Giuseppe Monetti said the study of ligamentous structures if performed only in clinostasis doesn't allow a correct definition of the eventual functional failure of the structures.
"In orthostasis is almost constant finding: the marked deflection of a ligament, as usually observed in the anterior cruciate ligament," Monetti added.
"The same concept can be applied in the study of eventual meniscal dislocations, disk herniation, vertebral anterior and posterior listhesis, as well as eventual reactive bone marrow edema, evident exclusively under weight-bearing."
In addition to G-scan Brio, the company unveiled the new E-MRI Brio Release 2 platform, which is a combination of acquisition and reconstruction of 2D sequences that speeds up the MRI examination and provides high image quality.