GO TO CMA Home
GO TO Inside CMA
GO TO Advocacy and Communications
GO TO Member Services
GO TO Publications
GO TO Professional Development
GO TO Clinical Resources

GO TO What's New
GO TO Contact CMA
GO TO Web Site Search
GO TO Web Site Map


CMAJ Today!

Souped-up MRI provides images of heart more quickly

Date: Oct. 19, 1999
Time: 11:28 am

Engineers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore have developed a system that dramatically cuts the time doctors have to wait for images showing where heart damage has occurred during a cardiac event. Jerry Prince and Nael Osman developed harmonic phase magnetic resonance imaging (HARP MRI) to overcome the practical and financial obstacles of using standard MRI scanners to examine the heart during typical cardiac stress tests. They say that even though MRI scanners can provide highly detailed data by "tagging" locations on the heart muscle and tracking their movement, they are not used to monitor patients during stress tests because the process is too costly and the results take too long to interpret.

The software and scanner modifications done for the HARP MRI system produce two-dimensional images of heart function in minutes, but Prince and Osman are already working to create three-dimensional images in real time. The eventual goal is to expand the system so it can evaluate portions of the heart beyond the left ventricle, which is the area upon which the system currently focuses. "That's our goal," says Prince. "We want to give cardiologists more detailed information about what is going on in the heart."

The HARP MRI remains a work in progress, but a cardiologist who has used the system says results from preliminary tests done at the Johns Hopkins Hospital are encouraging.

"I think the HARP MRI could revolutionize or dramatically change the way we do cardiac stress testing," says cardiologist Joao Lima. "With it we can receive quantitative results in a matter of minutes and it allows us to see the degree and extent of the heart problems."

Comments Send a letter to the editor
Envoyez une lettre à la rédaction