Toshiba Titan 1.5T , Open Bore Design – Built to increase patient comfort, the 71 cm aperture of the 1.5T Vantage Titan ultra-short, open bore MRI provides ample room for patients to feel more comfortable during exams. Accommodating big and small patients, the combination of a larger bore and a table that can support patients up to 440 lbs over the entire range of motion, provides patients plenty of shoulder room and more breathing room from nose to magnet. Offering an array of features that boost image quality, patient care, and productivity, Vantage Titan can see things more clearly than ever.
 

• Ultra-short, Ultra-wide, Open Bore: offers greater openness for claustrophobic patients.
• Large Field-of-View: the largest clinical field-of-view in the industry of 55x55x50 cm offers wider anatomical coverage while scanning large body parts—decreasing exam time and providing more image visualization.
• Table Flexibility: Serves a larger patient community with a table that lowers to less than 17 inches, offering greater access for pediatric and geriatric patients.
• Arm Rests: Conveniently located on both sides of the table, built-in arm rests improve patient comfort – especially during contrast exams.
• Pianissimo™ Noise–Reduction Technology: addresses the number one patient complaint, by reducing noise levels up to 90%, offering a more comfortable exam experience.
• Lightweight body coil: Titan’s ultra-lightweight, 16-element Atlas SPEEDER™ Body Coil covers the entire 55x55x50 cm field-of-view and because of its flexible and soft structure, this coil provides the maximum in patient comfort.
• Quicker Processing: SPEEDER parallel processing supports faster scanning techniques with high-quality images.
• Atlas Integrated Coil Technology: Integrated coils improve patient throughput by speeding up the imaging process during multiple exam requests.

 
Facilitating a Wider Range of Exams. Vantage Titan’s ultra-short, ultra-wide, open bore can perform a wider range of exams—from bariatric to geriatric and breast and non-contrast imaging to accommodate a great variety of patient cases.
 

• Non-Contrast Exams: Vantage Titan offers a safer alternative for performing rapid, high resolution MRA without using contrast agents, with 4th generation non-contrast sequences. These unique techniques deliver high-quality diagnostic images, while shortening exam times and increasing patient comfort and safety.
• Feet First Exams: 70% of all procedures can be performed feet first with a patient’s head comfortably laying outside of the bore.
• Open View Exams: The ultra-short, ultra-wide, open bore design allows patients views to remain unobstructed during an exam; a feature which significantly reduces the feelings of claustrophobia.
• Breast Exams: Titan’s large open bore provides ample room for larger patients that require even more room for higher profile coils used in breast exams. Advanced sequences available with the Radiance Plus Breast Imaging package combine morphologic and dynamic imaging techniques to provide comprehensive implant and cancer diagnostic capabilities.

Philips Infinion 1.5T, Short Bore, Flared Design – The Infinion 1.5T by Philips is a high field MRI system that is designed to maximize both efficiency and the quality. This system is one of the shortest and most open scanners available. It is equipped with an ultra short 1.4m magnet with a flared design providing a more comfortable experience for our patients. Offering the first dockable table couch in the industry, this system allows easy table access for patients that need more assistance.
 
Our Philips Infinion 1.5 Tesla MRI system combines its high field, short bore, magnet to deliver state of the art images while optimizing patient comfort. These features along with the newest software and hardware packages allows us to complete most procedures in 20 to 30 minutes. The Infinion is able to perform a full range of cutting-edge MRI procedures.

Toshiba Vantage 3T, Open Bore Design – The 3T Open Bore Vantage Titan offers all patients, including those that are claustrophobic, its state-of-the art technology. With all the advantages of our 1.5T Titan, the 3T combines its significant increase in field strength and advanced imaging techniques to offer unsurpassed images when it comes to particular studies. In these cases, the 3T is extremely efficient, offering patients shorter scan times and higher quality images. This allows our Board Certified Radiologist to interpret your MRI with confidence when trying to differentiate between benign or more serious medical conditions, ultimately allowing our team to provide you with faster, more accurate diagnosis.
 
3T imaging is now the standard of care when looking for small cartilage tears, smaller fields of view, thinner slice thickness, certain brain imaging techniques and when looking at blood vessels. This technology should be utilized when scanning:
 

• Joints
• Small body parts like fingers, toes, TMJ’s
• Brain imaging for MS
• Angiography

Blood Vessel Imaging – As Toshiba’s premier non-contrast technique, FBI is an ideal alternative to contrast-enhanced MRA due to its ability to image natural blood flow with exceptional sensitivity. The FBI sequence is fundamentally a 3D Fast Advanced Spin Echo technique paired with ECG gating to acquire T2 weighted images at predetermined time-points within the cardiac cycle. Aside from eliminating the need for contrast agents, there are many advantages to FBI over CE-MRA. For example, it acquires arterial and venous flow in a single acquisition requiring less scan time than other MRA techniques. It also eliminates common problems associated with CE-MRA such as improper timing. The FBI sequence can also be repeated immediately should the patient move or require a repeat exam for some other reason. In addition, a wide range of 3D data can be acquired in a short time because FBI is not limited to imaging in the axial plane.
 
Facts about how fresh blood imaging works
 

• FBI is a FASE 3D ECG gated sequence, designed to improve the natural visualization of blood vessels.
• FBI uses a short ETS to minimize the blurring of blood flow.
• FBI distinguishes arteries from veins by utilizing the loss of arterial signal in systole due to fast flow compared to diastole. Because veins appear bright in systole and diastole, subtraction produces a bright blood angiogram.
• A preparatory scan, known as ECG-prep, captures the area of interest and repeats the acquisition at intervals throughout one complete cardiac cycle. Peak systolic and diastolic delay times are determined based on these images.
• The background signals are suppressed using an IR pulse, which improves the contrast between the blood vessels and parenchyma.

Breast Imaging – Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the breast is a noninvasive, usually painless test that is used along Mammography as a diagnostic tool for breast abnormalities. Using a contrast agent, MRI is able to detect and measure breast abnormalities, tell whether an abnormality looks benign or malignant, and determine the presence of enlarged lymph nodes.
 
Breast Localization: A procedure that locates and marks the breast tissue to be removed by a surgical breast biopsy. Using MRI and an enhancing agent, our physicians are able to pinpoint and “mark” the breast abnormality by guiding a wire through a small needle. The needle is then removed leaving only the wire, which will guide your physician during a surgical biopsy procedure.
 
Breast Biopsy: The removal of abnormal breast tissue for further microscopic examination. At Southern Tier Imaging we use the Suros ATEC system. This minimally invasive MRI guided breast biopsy and excision system is viewed as one of the most efficient and preferred minimally invasive diagnostic biopsy options available. Using this system, along with MRI and an enhancing agent, our physicians are able to confidently localize and sample the questionable breast tissue all at once, offering our patient an efficient biopsy with minimal pain or scarring.

Suros ATEC Breast Biopsy System – Southern Tier Imaging is committed to providing our patients with the leading and most innovative technology available and is excited to announce the addition of the Suros ATEC System, a Breast Biopsy and Excision System, to our Breast Imaging services. With the addition of the Suros ATEC system, we can offer women a minimally invasive Breast Biopsy that needs no stitches and leaves minimal or no visible post-procedure scarring.
 
With the addition of the Suros ATEC system, we can offer women a minimally invasive Breast Biopsy that allows them to resume normal daily activities immediately following the biopsy procedure, leaving our facility with no stitches and minimal or no visible post-procedure scarring.
 
The ATEC (Automated Tissue Excision and Collection) Breast Biopsy and Excision System is viewed as one of the most efficient and preferred minimally invasive diagnostic breast biopsy options available today. This fully closed system uses vacuum-assisted technology to perform a true one-minute breast biopsy. The unique ATEC feature of continuous tissue acquisition and a closed collection system allows for a fast, safe and easy breast biopsy experience for our patients. Using this system, along with MRI and an enhancing agent, our physicians are able to confidently localize and sample the questionable breast tissue all at once, offering our patient an efficient biopsy with minimal pain or scarring.

CADstream – Merge CADstream improves the efficiency of MRI study analysis, reporting and interventional planning so your practice saves time and standardizes processes, while improving communication with referring physicians. CADstream automates the analysis, reporting and interventional planning of your MRI studies. With Merge CADstream you can:
 

• Improve analysis and standardize interpretation of studies with automated post-processing and reporting
• Reduce the amount of time analyzing studies with customized workflow features
• Improve physician confidence in results
• Automate comparison of serial exams
• Validate analysis with extensive peer

Radiance Breast Coil – Breast MR has become the fastest growing subspecialty in MR today, with a 40% annual increase in examination requests recently reported. Viewed as an adjunct rather than a replacement for mammography, breast MR can greatly increase physician confidence and improve patient care with the ability to:
 

• Determine the location and extent of the disease with greater precision
• Improve detection in dense or augmented
  breasts that obscure visualization with mammography
• Resolve questions regarding smaller lesions and inconclusive mammograms
• Screen high-risk patients and patients under age 40 without radiation
• Monitor treatment response and identify residual and recurrent cancer
• Use contrast material as an option to enhance visualization of abnormalities

 
Enhancing the potential of MR for early detection, Toshiba’s Radiance Plus Breast Imaging package combines unique breast coil technology with proprietary examination techniques. By boosting signal strength up to 30%, lesions as small as 3 mm can be detected, facilitating faster diagnoses and more timely treatment decisions.
 
Advanced sequences available with the Radiance Plus Breast Imaging package combine morphologic and dynamic imaging techniques to provide comprehensive implant and cancer diagnostic capabilities. These options include Quick 3D imaging, Fat Free imaging, silicone-only imaging, water-only imaging and high-resolution dynamic axial and sagittal techniques. Utilizing Toshiba’s Enhanced Fat Sat technique, they produce equal signal strength throughout all breast tissue regardless of size, shape or fat concentration.

MRE (Magnetic Resonance Enterography) – Southern Tier Imaging is proud to offer our community MR Enterography. MR Enterography is a special type of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) performed with a contrast material to produce detailed images of the small intestine. It can identify and locate the prescence of, and complications from crohn’s disease and other inflamatory diseases. Some of these may include inflammation, tumors, abcesses and fistula’s. Also bleeding sources, vascular abnormalities and bowel obstructions can be detected.
 

• MRI is a noninvasive imaging technique that does not involve exposure to ionizing radiation.
• MRI enables the discovery of abnormalities that might be obscured by bone with other imaging methods.
• The contrast material used in MRI exams is less likely to produce an allergic reaction than the iodine-based contrast materials used for conventional x-rays and CT scanning.
• MR enterography is a complementary imaging examination that helps Identify areas of bowel inflammation due to such diseases as Crohn’s.
• Because MR enterography does not involve ionizing radiation, the procedure may be preferred for the evaluation of young patients with Inflammatory bowel disease who may undergo multiple exams throughout their life.
• MR enterography is a safer alternative for physicians to utilize to Follow the progression of their patients disease.
• MRE is rapidly becoming the first-line imaging tool for evaluating the small bowel in patients with Crohn’s disease.

Arthrograms – Arthrography is medical imaging to evaluate conditions of joints. It can either be indirect or direct. Indirect arthrography is a medical imaging technique in which contrast material is injected into the blood stream, which will eventually absorb into the joint. With direct arthrography, the contrast material is injected directly into the joint. Direct arthrography is the preferred method because it is better for distending or enlarging the joint and imaging small internal structures to allow for better evaluation of diseases or conditions within the joint. It, however, is often performed only if a non-arthrographic exam is felt to be inadequate.
 
Arthrographic images help physicians evaluate alterations in structure and function of a joint and help to determine the possible need for treatment, including arthroscopy, open surgery or joint replacement. The procedure is most often used to identify abnormalities within the:
 

• Shoulder
• Elbow
• Wrist
• Hip
• Knee
• Ankle

 
The procedure is also used to help diagnose persistent, unexplained joint pain or discomfort. In some cases, local anesthetic medications or steroids may be injected into the joint along with the contrast material. These medications may temporarily decrease joint-related pain or inflammation and provide physicians additional information about possible sources of joint pain.