HIGH RESOLUTION NICHE MRI OF THE WRIST

关节炎困扰着大约3600万美国人，据估计，每年 给经济造成了10亿美元的损失。磁共振成像非常适合用来评估 关节炎，是唯一能够无创成像的所有 运动类型的组件。核磁共振被接受的主要障碍 对于这些目的来说，就是成本。小众核磁共振机降低了扫描成本，但 信噪比(SNR)较低。高温超导 (HTS)线圈可将NICE MRI的SNR提高3.5倍 0.2T的手腕图像这一SNR增益可用于增加图像 通过将体素体积减小3.5倍来实现分辨率。信噪比 可替换地，可以使用增益来将扫描时间减少一倍 12，从而进一步降低了扫描成本。在第一阶段，我们建议 为小众核磁共振系统设计和制造HTS核磁共振线圈，并演示 手腕图像。 建议的商业应用： 我们估计用于利基核磁共振机的HTS线圈的市场将是 目前每年约为500万美元，如果这些 事实证明，线圈对关节炎等重大新应用非常重要。

Arthritis afflicts some 36 million Americans, with an estimated annual cost to the economy of $64 billion. MRI is ideally suited to evaluate arthritis and is the only modality capable of non-invasive imaging of all components of the joint. A principle obstacle to the acceptance of MRI for these purposes is cost. Niche MRI machines lower the scan cost, but with lower signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). High-temperature superconducting (HTS) coils can increase SNR by as much as a factor of 3.5 for niche MRI wrist images at 0.2 T. This SNR gain can be used to increase image resolution by decreasing the voxel volume by a factor of 3.5. The SNR gain could alternatively be used to decrease the scan time by a factor of 12, and thus further decrease the scan cost. In Phase 1 we propose to design and build HTS MRI coils for a niche MRI system, and demonstrate wrist images. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS: We estimate the market for HTS coils for niche MRI machines to be approximately $5 million per year at present, with rapid growth if these coils prove important for major new applications such as arthritis.