(DC) A continuous current that flows in only one direction.

[This entry is marked for removal.]

(July 20, 2009 - EPIX Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced today that, in light of the company's lack of capital and inability to obtain additional financing or consummate a strategic transaction, it has entered into an Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors, effective immediately, in accordance with Massachusetts law).
EPIX has been a specialty pharmaceutical firm developing targeted contrast agents to improve the capability of MRI as a diagnostic tool for a variety of diseases. Gadofosveset trisodium (formerly MS-325, Vasovist™, now ABLAVARt™), is an injectable intravascular contrast agents designed for multiple vascular imaging applications, including peripheral vascular disease and coronary artery disease. EPIX conducted a pivotal Phase III trial for the detection of peripheral vascular disease, as well as a Phase II feasibility trial for coronary artery disease diagnosis.
To ensure rapid development and adoption of gadofosveset trisodium into clinical practice upon regulatory approval, EPIX pursued an aggressive product development plan and commercialization strategy. The Company established an exclusive, worldwide sales and marketing agreement with Bayer Schering Pharma AG. EPIX also established corporate collaborations with GE Healthcare, Philips Medical Systems and Siemens Medical Systems, the three leading MRI manufacturers, which together account for approximately 80 percent of the MRI machines installed worldwide.
EPIX had other MRI contrast agents under development, most significantly a novel prototype blood clot agent (EP-2104R). Potential clinical applications for this type of agent include detection of deep venous thrombosis, pulmonary embolism and blood clots in the coronary and carotid arteries. Currently, there is no high resolution imaging technique to directly visualize blood clots in patients with suspected cardiovascular disease.

(DTI) Diffusion tensor imaging is the more sophisticated form of DWI, which allows for the determination of directionality as well as the magnitude of water diffusion. This kind of MR imaging can estimates damage to nerve fibers that connect the area of the brain affected by the stroke to brain regions that are distant from it, and can be used to determine the effectiveness of stroke prevention medications.
DTI (FiberTrak) enables to visualize white matter fibers in the brain and can map (trace image) subtle changes in the white matter associated with diseases such as multiple sclerosis and epilepsy, as well as assessing diseases where the brain's wiring is abnormal, such as schizophrenia.
The fractional anisotropy (FA) gives information about the shape of the diffusion tensor at each voxel. The FA is based on the normalized variance of the eigenvalues. The fractional anisotropy reflects differences between an isotropic diffusion and a linear diffusion. The FA range is between 0 and 1 (0 = isotropic diffusion, 1 = highly directional).
The development of new imaging methods and some useful analysis techniques, such as 3-dimensional anisotropy contrast (3DAC) and spatial tracking of the diffusion tensor tractography (DTT), are currently under study.

(H) The region surrounding a magnet (or current carrying conductor) is equipped with certain properties like that a small magnet in such a region experiences a torque that tends to align it in a given direction. Magnetic field is a vector quantity; the direction of the field is defined as the direction that the north pole of the small magnet points when in equilibrium.

A magnetic field produces a magnetizing force on a body within it. Although the dangers of large magnetic fields are largely hypothetical, this is an area of potential concern for safety limits. Formally, the forces experienced by moving charged particles, current carrying wires, and small magnets in the vicinity of magnet are due to magnetic induction (B), which includes the effect of magnetization, while the magnetic field (H) is defined so as not to include magnetization. However, both B and H are often loosely used to denote magnetic fields.

(PACS) A system used to communicate and archive medical imaging data, mostly images and associated textural data generated in a radiology department, and disseminated throughout the hospital. A PACS is usually based on the DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) standard.
The main components in the PACS are:
Acquisition devices, which acquire their data in direct digital format, like a MRI system, are most easily integrated into a PACS.
Short term archives need to have rapid access, such as provided by a RAID (redundant array of independent disks), whereas long term archives need not have such rapid access and can be consigned, e.g. to optical disks or a magnetic.
High speed networks are necessary for rapid transmission of imaging data from the short term archive to the diagnostic workstations. Optical fiber, ATM (asynchronous transfer mode), fast or switched Ethernet, are examples of high speed transmission networks, whereas demographic textural data may be transmitted along conventional Ethernet.
Sophisticated software is a major element in any hospital-wide PACS. The software concepts include: preloading or prefetching of historical images pertinent to current examinations, worklists and folders to subdivide the vast mass of data acquired in a PACS in a form, which is easy and practical to access, default display protocols whereby images are automatically displayed on workstation monitors in a prearranged clinically logical order and format, and protocols radiologists can rapidly report worklists of undictated examinations, using a minimum of computer manipulation.