Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba

Junichi Makita

Shigehide Kuhara

Tsutomu Hoshino

Fumitoshi Kojima

Toru Segawa

An easily recognized spatial relationship between an object and a section thereof is displayed (together with a real time image of the section) to permit quick, accurate, easy and accurate selection of a desired three-dimensional position for the section. The coordinate system of an imaging system may also be concurrently displayed. In addition to sequentially pasted real time section images, a reference image acquired at an arbitrary time may also be pasted on a portion of the display. Thus a reference image and a real-time image of the scanned section can be displayed to facilitate a better spatial understanding of the position of the section being scanned and imaged.

Real-time interactive three-dimensional locating and displaying system

Time-Of-Flight (TOF) MRI techniques are used to enhance blood flows into one of a pair of images for a given plane or slice of a patent's body. Arithmetic subtraction of such images produces a resultant image of substantially only blood flows since images of fat or other tissue are thus nulled out of the resultant image. All basic MRI sequences (e.g., FE, SE, etc.) can be used in conjunction with a pre-pulse on additional sub-sequences in a plane displaced from the objective plane to be imaged. Both arterial and venous blood flows can be imaged (separately or together in one resultant image). Color coding can be used in the resultant images to distinguish blood flow directions and/or velocities.

MR imaging utilizing the time of flight effect

A neck bending apparatus is utilized in association with a coil device of a magnetic resonance imaging system for imaging a forwardly or rearwardly bent condition of the neck portion of the patient. The apparatus includes a plurality of air cushions having variable inner volumes and an air regulator connected to the cushions for regulating the inner volume of each of the cushions in accordance with a degree of bending of the neck portion of the patient. Two cushions are utilized for imaging the neck portion of the patient for resting the head and neck portions and these cushions are connected through a connecting member. The air regulator includes a hand-grip air pump for feeding air into and out of the air cushions, a tube connecting the pump and the cushions and a valve unit connected to the tube for regulating the amount of air fed into and out of the air cushions. In association with the apparatus, the magnetic resonance imaging system is utilized, which includes a coil device including a rest portion on which a subject portion of the patient is rested, a coil unit having substantially an elliptical shape, a coil support portion which is detachably secured to the rest portion and in which the coil unit is disposed and an attachment portion attached to a top board on which the patient is laid.

Neck bending apparatus

Between at least one of a transmitting coil and a receiving coil and a subject to be examined is interposed a member containing a high molecular compound such as a molded sheet of nonconductive fiber or rubber, a PVA gel sheet or a PAR gel sheet. Thereby, the radio-frequency magnetic field distribution can be regulated with ease without adjusting hardware or software of a magnetic resonance diagnostic apparatus, thus permitting diagnosises to be made with high accuracy.

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Junichi Makita