Low Field MRI Scanner

Target SDGs

Market Suggested Retail Price

$18,000.00

Target Users (Target Impact Group)

Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, Public Sector Agencies

Distributors / Implementing Organizations

Unknown

Regions

Africa

Manufacturing/Building Method

This product is currently in the prototyping phase and not yet manufactured at scale. Prototypes are being developed in Uganda by the Biomedical Engineering Department at Mbarara University of Science and Technology.

Intellectural Property Type

Patent

User Provision Model

The designers have not yet selected their user provision model.

Distributions to Date Status

None

Design Specifications

The most expensive part of a conventional MRI system is the superconducting magnets. During the design of a Low Field MRI scanner, the superconducting magnets were replaced by a configuration of inexpensive off-the-shelf permanent magnets placed in a magnet cylinder as rings. The variations in the magnetic field can be used for spatial encoding, thus removing the necessity for gradient coils.

Product Schematics

Technical Support

Provided by Biomedical Engineering Research group at Mbarara University.

Replacement Components

Replaceable components include the permanent magnets.

Lifecycle

<10 years ^{Interview with designer in 2021}

Manufacturer Specified Performance Parameters

Manufacturer specified performance targets include being less than 50,000 Euros, lightweight, and easy to maintain.

Vetted Performance Status

The research group conducted two forms of the test; 1) performance tests in a lab setting using cabbages and volunteers to carry out brain scans, 2) denoising tests using machine learning algorithms using a two-level Bregman iterative method for image reconstruction and image denoising procedure both in Uganda and Netherlands.   Experiments were done on a noisy phantom that was obtained from a low field MRI scanner. Results demonstrated that the two-level Bregman algorithm performs superior image reconstructions that are almost noise-free. The method also performed better than the TBMDU algorithm, which performed better than  DLMRI. However, the TBMDU algorithm was faster than the Bregman algorithm due to additional iterations required during the denoising step.

Safety

The low field MRI scanner uses a non-ionizing magnet field which is proven to be the safest technique for medical imaging.  

Complementary Technical Systems

The MRI system has been made to configure on tablet/iPad as an alternative interface.

Academic Research and References

Compliance with regulations

None, as the Low field MRI is still under development.

Evaluation methods

The methods included in-house testing using small phantom images and a pilot with volunteer participants. More studies will be conducted after the completion of the design.

Other Information

None