Diagnostic imaging, cardiology

Groundbreaking treatments at new London centre for cardiovascular MR

11 September 2007

Great Ormond Street Hospital, London, has recently opened its new Centre for Cardiovascular MR with two Magnetom Avanto MRI scanners and an interventional cardiac catheterisation laboratory from Siemens Medical Solutions. The new centre, which has been developed by Dr Andrew Taylor and Professors John Deanfield and Philipp Bonhoeffer in conjunction with Siemens over the last four years, was partly funded by the British Heart Foundation.

The set-up of the new Centre will allow two different examinations to be carried out (angiography & MRI) one immediately after the other. Previously, a patient could not be safely transferred from one imaging modality to another under the same general anaesthetic. With the new suite, patients can be examined on one machine before being transported on the special ‘Miyabi’ shell system for the second MRI exam.

Professor Bonhoeffer, an internationally respected specialist in interventional catheterisation for patients with congenital and valvar heart disease will conduct groundbreaking research and clinical application into non-invasive heart surgery using advanced catheterisation techniques. This avoids the complications and dangers present with open-heart surgery, like damage to other organs, drastically reduced opportunity for infection, recovery time of days instead of weeks and less post operation medication.

Dr Andrew Taylor, an Academic Radiologist at Great Ormond Street Hospital, said: “This is an entirely unique way of performing these exams. We can undock the patient from one system and directly transport them to the other while still under anaesthetic, which enables us to combine information from both imaging modalities, whilst acquiring new functional data that we have has hitherto not been able to easily acquire.”

“This is the first time we have put together a hybrid solution like this in the UK and this project has been a strong success,” said Gary Cook, Siemens London Sales Manager. “Aside from being able to move patients between two modalities, the Magnetom Avanto enables the highest acquisition speed without sacrificing spatial or temporal resolution. Combining this with the advanced Artis Biplane Cardioangiography solution and integrating the output for both PACS and external operation broadcast, not only allows the doctors to reduce procedure times but also share the benefits way beyond GOSH and the UK.”

MAGNETOM Avanto, the world’s first Tim MRI system, provides unsurpassed image quality, enhanced productivity, and greater patient comfort. The TIM Application Suite has a complete range of clinically optimised examinations for all regions. Excellent head-to-toe imaging can be accomplished with the sequences and features included in this application suite.

To top

Save this page on del.icio.us

To top