USA — GE HealthCare, a leading healthcare technology company in the United States, has introduced a groundbreaking advancement in MR scanning with the launch of Sonic DL, an FDA-cleared deep-learning technology.
This innovative technology has the capability to make MR scanning 12 times faster, enabling clinicians to capture high-quality cardiac MR scans in just a single heartbeat and conduct comprehensive exams within a remarkable one-minute timeframe.
Cardiac MR is considered the gold standard for assessing cardiovascular disease; however, it has been hampered by its slow speed, making it difficult to capture real-time heart contractions.
Sonic DL addresses this challenge by matching the speed of the scanner to the patient’s cardiac physiology, resulting in a significant reduction in scanning times of up to 83%.
This not only saves valuable time but also minimizes the occurrence of motion artifacts that can compromise image quality.
Anja Brau, the general manager of MR clinical solutions and research collaborations at GE HealthCare, expressed the importance of this time-saving technology, stating, “This significant time savings supports our vision for a complete cardiac MR exam in 30 minutes or less.”
Sonic DL opens up new possibilities for imaging paradigms, including the ability to perform high-quality cardiac MRI in a single heartbeat, thereby expanding the company’s portfolio of AI-enabled solutions.
Despite the effectiveness of cardiac MRI in assessing heart structure and function, its adoption globally has been relatively low.
Sonic DL aims to overcome barriers to adoption by enhancing the speed and efficiency of cardiac MR exams.
One of the notable advantages of Sonic DL is that it eliminates the need for patients to hold their breath multiple times during exams, and it also eliminates the requirement for clinicians to scan multiple heartbeats and stitch them together using conventional methods to visualize a single “apparent” beat.
This simplifies the examination process, reduces the risk of patient degradation, and eliminates compromises in spatial and temporal resolutions that arise from these traditional methods.
Sonic DL is compatible with a wide range of GE HealthCare 1.5T and 3T scanners, both new and existing ones, through a simple upgrade. It can also be used in conjunction with Air Recon DL, another advanced technology offered by GE HealthCare.
Air Recon DL utilizes the raw data collected by MR scanners to maximize image quality and resolution, even when scanning time is reduced.
This additional technology can reduce exam times by 30% to 50% and is approved for use on 1.5T, 3T, and 7T MR systems.
The accelerated scan times offered by Sonic DL not only improve patient care but also streamline workflow and alleviate backlogs for healthcare professionals.
Brau emphasized the positive impact of this advancement on healthcare operations, stating that faster scan times would contribute to a smoother workflow in medical facilities.
In addition to the introduction of Sonic DL, GE HealthCare has also recently obtained FDA clearance for its Precision DL image processing software.
This software is specifically designed to enhance contrast-to-noise ratio, contrast recovery, and quantitative accuracy on GE HealthCare’s first all-digital PET/CT system, Omni Legend.
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