Compact platform offers cost-effective option to improve access to MRI
Siemens Healthineers’ Magnetom Free.Star is a cost-effective whole body MRI scanner that is designed to enable significantly better access to MR imaging worldwide. Together with the Magnetom Free.Max system, Magnetom Free.Star is part of a new generation of scanners that are said to achieve excellent image quality with digital technologies. The two MR systems are based on the High-V MRI platform and are the smallest and most lightweight whole body scanners that Siemens has ever built.
ElsMed is a business partner of Siemens Healthineers with many joint projects on several continents. The company has been operating in Africa for many years and offers healthcare solutions up to the construction and operation of entire hospitals. “We are looking forward to using the new Magnetom Free.Star to bring MR imaging to previously underserved regions, such as rural areas in Africa,” says managing director Africa Udi Baruch. “With technologies such as the easy-to-use interface, the system can solve challenges that have, until now, excluded many people in Africa from accessing this important medical imaging modality.
“Additionally, the helium-independent magnet technology is an enormous advantage in areas where the system’s transport and installation are otherwise challenging.”
Magnetom Free.Star has a field strength of 0.55T, which offers high diagnostic value due to AI-based reconstruction algorithms such as Deep Resolve Sharp. It raises the image quality to a level that Siemens says could previously only be achieved with significantly higher field strengths. In addition, this new field strength offers advantages for clinical fields such as implant and lung imaging.
The platform uses DryCool magnet technology, which requires less than one litre of liquid helium to cool the MRI. Because the compact systems can be rolled through normal hospital doors in many cases, complex works can be avoided during installation. Costs over the lifecycle of the system are up to 30 per cent lower than with conventional scanners, says Siemens.
Picture: Magnetom Free.Star is a cost-effective whole body MRI system with a field strength of 0.55T.
Published on page 19 of the December 2021 issue of RAD Magazine.
