What is the difference between an Open MRI and a conventional, or high-field, MRI?
Open MRI is an outstanding tool for scanning patients who would otherwise not be able to benefit from MRI’s invaluable diagnostic capabilities. Featuring a much larger patient gantry and an open-end design, Open MRI systems have become an attractive option for patients who have difficulty with the size constraints of conventional MRI systems, and provide a patient-friendly environment for high-quality routine head, neck, body, and musculoskeletal MRI exams. Because an Open MRI machine is, in fact, open-ended, the magnetic field it produces is less than the magnetic field produced by a conventional, high-field scanner. Subsequently, Open MRI scan times can be considerably longer than those of high-field machines. For example, a shoulder scan on a standard high-field machine might take 20 minutes. On an Open MRI system, it could take close to an hour to produce similar results. Our modern high-field MRI scanners are capable of some amazing new studies that are not yet available on Open M
