Last year, healthcare technology company Hyperfine won FDA clearance for the world’s first MRI scanner that can be wheeled down a hospital hallway to a patient’s bedside. The machine proved its potential in early trials, and a recent Yale-led study adds to this success by using it to detect stroke cases requiring surgical intervention with 80% accuracy.
The machine, dubbed the Portable Point-of-Care MRI system, was developed as a portable alternative to large and expensive MRI machines that need custom-built rooms for their powerful magnetic fields.
Hyperfine’s MRI solution harnesses developments in computing power to reduce the size of magnets required, packing them into a machine that is ten times lighter, 20 times less expensive, and uses 35 times less power than existing MRI machines.
The machine can plug into a standard power outlet and perform MRIs without additional protective gear. Last year, it was trialed in a study involving 30 patients hospitalized with brain abnormalities, including strokes and tumors. The system accurately detected those abnormalities in 29 out of 30 subjects.
The same research team has recently conducted another study that investigates the potential of the portable MRI machine specifically in diagnosing strokes. Time is crucial for doctors treating patients presenting signs of stroke. Some strokes are caused by clots that can be cleared with blood-thinning medications, while others are caused by internal brain bleeding, which requires surgical intervention.
The study, published on Aug 25, 2021, in Nature Communications, involved 144 patients, with the scientists drawing on both MRIs performed by the portable machine and traditional neuroimaging scans. Then, trained experts used the images to identify victims of intracranial hemorrhages (internal bleeding) from acute ischemic strokes (blood clots), alongside healthy controls.
Kevin Sheth, a co-corresponding author of the study, said:
There is no question this device can help save lives in resource-limited settings, such as rural hospitals or developing countries. However, there is also now a path to see how it can help in modern settings. Therefore, it is of critical importance to continue to collect more data across a range of stroke characteristics so that we can maximize the potential benefit of this approach.
The researchers claim this study is the first to use a portable MRI device to confirm a brain hemorrhage’s appearance and clinical implications. However, there is still tons of work needed before Hyperfine’s machine officially enters clinical use. Nevertheless, if and when it does, it could play a significant role in improving health care in regions that don’t have access to advanced brain imaging technology.
For now, the team plans to further explore its potential in diagnosing at-risk patients with high blood pressure, brain tumors, and head trauma.
MRIs are a brilliant piece of modern medicine that gives us a picture of our body’s insides – organs, bones, nerves, and soft tissue. In 2019, a different group of researchers made them even more helpful by successfully transforming an MRI from a diagnostic camera into a device that can record changes in the biological makeup of brain tissue. Meaning, it can show us the molecular makeup of our body parts!
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October 18, 2021 at 07:30AM
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World-First Portable MRI Machine Detects Strokes With 80% Accuracy - Intelligent Living
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