From Hitachi Medical Systems America, Inc.;
because of its dependability, the MRP-7000™ remains popular more than a decade after the first U.S. system was shipped. This system maintains a high resale value, what has made it one of the most sought-after scanners on the used MRI equipment market.

MS-325 is the formerly code name of gadofosveset trisodium (new trade name Vasovist). MS-325 belongs to a new class of blood pool agents for magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) to diagnose vascular disease. Gadofosveset trisodium has ten times the signal-enhancing power of existing contrast agents as well as prolonged retention in the blood. This enables the rapid acquisition of high resolution MRA's using standard MRI machines.
Gadofosveset trisodium, which is gadolinium-based, stays in the blood stream as a result of transient binding to albumin. Albumin binding offers an additional benefit beyond localization in the blood pool. The contrast agent begins to spin much more slowly, at the rate albumin spins, causing a relaxivity gain that produces a substantially brighter signal than would be possible with freely circulating gadolinium. MS-325 is an intravascular contrast agent intended for use in MRI as an aid in diagnosing aortoiliac occlusive disease in patients with known or suspected peripheral vascular disease (PVD) or abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA).
Currently clinical trials completed for peripheral vascular disease and coronary artery disease. Additional trials are also being conducted to evaluate MS-325 as an aid in diagnosing breast cancer and suggested that it might be feasible to combine the use of MS-325, injected during peak stress, with delayed high-resolution imaging to identify myocardial perfusion defects.
Vasovist (MS-325) would compete with the contrast agents Ferumoxytol (Code 7228) from AMAG Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and NC100150 Injection from Nycomed Amersham, but their further development is uncertain.
Partners in development: EPIX Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Mallinckrodt Inc., and Bayer Schering Pharma AG. Bayer Schering Pharma has the worldwide marketing rights for the product.
Formerly known under the Mallinckrodt trademark name, AngioMARK®.

See also Classifications, Characteristics, etc.

Many MR imaging techniques using Motion Probing Gradients (MPG's) such as Spin Echo (SE), Stimulated Echo (STE), Rapid Acquisition with Relaxation Enhancement (RARE), Turbo-SE, and SE-EPI (Echo Planar Imaging for Spin echo acquisition), Spiral imaging, and Projection reconstruction including PROPELLER are applicable to DWI. In diffusion weighted imaging, 2 MPG's are required. The MPG's are put symmetrically into both sides of a 180° or 90° RF pulse to change the direction of the magnetized spin in the X-Y plane for spin echo or stimulated echo acquisition.

(MEDIC) MEDIC is a heavily T2* weighted spoiled gradient echo sequence with multiple echoes. MEDIC uses a series of identically phase encoded gradient echoes, sampled per line in k-space. Unipolar frequency encoding gradients are used to achieve flow compensation and to avoid off resonance effects. For each echo the magnitude images are reconstructed and postprocessed by using a sum of squares algorithm to improve the signal to noise ratio. The increased receiver bandwidth reduces the T2* effects and impairment of the spatial resolution.
The multi echo data image combination sequence is potentially useful in imaging of cartilage in joints.

(PE) The partial echo technique (also called fractional echo) is used to shorten the minimum echo time. By the acquisition of only a part of k-space data this technique benefits (like all partial Fourier techniques) from the complex conjugate symmetry between the k-space halves (this is called Hermitian symmetry).
The dephasing gradient in the frequency direction is reduced, and the duration of the readout gradient and the data acquisition window are shortened. Partial echo gives a better SNR at a given TE when a smaller FOV or thinner slices are selected, allows a longer sampling time, and a larger water fat shift (WFS, see also bandwidth) due to a lower gradient amplitude. The resolution is not affected. This is often used in gradient echo sequences (e.g. FLASH, Contrast Enhanced Magnetic Resonance Angiography) to reduce the echo time and yields a lower gradient moment. The disadvantage of using a partial echo can be a lower SNR, although this may be partly offset by the reduced echo time.
Also called Fractional Echo, Read Conjugate Symmetry, Single Side View.

See also Partial Fourier Technique and acronyms for 'partial echo' from different manufacturers.