Detect Disease Earlier with MMRI

Magnetic resonance medical imaging, which is built on the principles of nuclear magnetic resonance, produces a picture of the NMR signal in a narrow slice right through the human body. Pictures taken sequentially build a three dimensional picture of anatomical structures. Magnetic resonance medical imaging is the preferred analytical tool for visualizing the nervous system as well as evaluating soft tissue.

Molecular magnetic resonance imaging allows for the visualization and analysis of cells and molecules. At this level, it's doable to stalk and evaluate cellular functions that will offer never-before-available medical imaging insight into the disease process. For example, there has long been an established connection between inflammation and heart disease. Still, the medical imaging tools to calculate inflammation related to the heart have not been accessible at a fine enough level of measurement to fully explore the connection.

On January sixteenth 2007 the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a study by researchers at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York that uses molecular MRI medical imaging to obtain insight into the relationship between inflammation and heart disease. Researchers developed a synthetic material, gadolinium�diethyltriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA), that's able to locate and connect to WBC's (white blood cells) imbedded in arterial walls. The DPTA permitted mMRI medical imaging visualization of the white blood cells, providing the ability to actually count the number of cells and calculate how stable they are. Researchers found a positive correlation between the number of white cells stuck in the arterial walls and the odds of subsequent heart attack. The original research was conducted on mice.

Further research will be conducted on larger animals and if it's successful, human clinical trails will follow. The discovery of better, more effective and more specific medical imaging "tagging" media is the most popular new field of research in molecular magnetic resonance medical imaging. Lately, researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley have reported on research concerning a new medical imaging method for molecular magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that can identify molecules ten thousand times lower concentrations than regular MRI techniques. The method, called HYPER-CEST, for hyperpolarized xenon chemical exchange saturation transfer, hyperpolarizes atoms with laser light to enhance their MRI signal, then puts the atoms into a nanoscale cage biosensor that is made specific for a individual protein target. This medical imaging method will most likely be very useful in identifying cancer cells at the most primitive stages of cancer.

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Jesse Fisher likes composing articles for his customers including Transamerican Medical, a business that buys and sells Philips Medical equipment and parts. See also Imaging Centers online directory.