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New, powerful MRI in use at Phoebe

• An Albany hospital's new high-powered MRI provides detailed images that often dictate diagnosis and treatment.

Barbara Rivera Holmes

ALBANY — If a metallic tape measure were placed just inside the door to the new magnetic resonance imaging room at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, it would immediately be pulled toward the center of the MRI machine; such is the force of its high-field magnet.

Before patients, technicians or visitors enter the MRI room, they must be stripped of nearly everything but their clothes. In the late evenings, the door to the room is dead-bolted shut.

The $1.8 million Siemens Magnotem Espree open-boar MRI machine is one of the newest pieces of technology at Phoebe and “Albany’s first true open high-field magnet,” said MRI manager Deborah Lloyd. It has been operational at Phoebe for about two weeks and is the same model, hospital officials said, as the one used at the Mayo Clinic’s Jacksonville, Fla., campus.

The force of the machine’s magnet dictates the great precaution that radiology technicians take to ensure their safety, as well as that of patients.

Essentially, explained Lloyd, a radiology technician and registered magnetic-resonance technician, no metal objects can come near the machine. That means people who have tattoos with ink containing lead, shrapnel or metal pieces in their body cannot go through the machine.

In the past, she said, equipment such as ventilators weren’t allowed near MRI machines, so patients on the device couldn’t utilize the technology. Now, she said, there are magnetic resonance-compatible devises.

The viewing window between the MRI room and the computer room in which techs process the data is lined with copper mesh, and the computer room itself is encased in galvanized steel. All of that is an effort to keep out the radiofrequency waves that distort images. Renovations, when added to the cost of the machine, resulted in a total $2.3 million investment, Lloyd said.

The magnet, which has a field that can align the magnetization of hydrogen atoms, helps produce highly detailed data that can be read as images showing tissue lesions or graphs detailing the composition of bone marrow. Through that data, radiologists can detect the presence of malignant cells, infections in the marrow and necrosis.

Not only is the magnet of the new 4-foot-long machine stronger than that of the other MRI machine at Phoebe, Lloyd said, its opening is larger, thus making patients more comfortable during a procedure that makes many feel claustrophobic.

The diameter of the opening is 2.3 feet, said Lloyd, compared with the slightly smaller opening of Phoebe’s other machine. That’s significantly larger than the average 50-centimeter opening in a traditional MRI machine, which Phoebe does not have.

“We haven’t had a patient that was unable to tolerate the machine,” said the radiology department’s Ron Frazier.

Indeed, 55-year-old Otis Hodge of Albany said his MRI procedure earlier this week “didn’t bother me.”

Hodge, who was prepped for another MRI scan Friday morning, said, “You can just hear the noise.” Though he noted that it can be initially uncomfortable “if you aren’t used to being enclosed,” Hodge said the machine is “a real smooth ride.”

That diameter also better accommodates larger patients and has a weight limit of 550 pounds, Lloyd said.

Also, the machine allows for a foot and ankle coil that helps stabilize the areas in which diabetic patients can develop wounds and infections.

Procedures using the new MRI machine are conducted seven days a week, Lloyd said, from about 5:45 a.m. until midnight.

The addition of the machine and its availability has reduced the former one-week MRI waiting list and will ultimately increase the number of MRI procedures conducted at Phoebe. Currently, the hospital performs about 130 such procedures per week.

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