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EINDHOVEN, THE NETHERLANDS
- Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI)
today announced the first 3D imaging results
obtained with a new imaging technology called
Magnetic Particle Imaging (MPI). The technology,
which uses the magnetic properties of iron-oxide
nanoparticles injected into the bloodstream, has
been used in a pre-clinical study to generate
unprecedented real-time images of arterial blood
flow and volumetric heart motion. This represents a
major step forward in taking Magnetic Particle
Imaging from a theoretical concept to an imaging
tool to help improve diagnosis and therapy planning
for many of the world's major diseases, such as
heart disease, stroke and cancer. The results of the
pre-clinical study were published in volume 54,
issue 5 of Physics in Medicine and Biology (2009).
“A novel non-invasive cardiac imaging technology is
required to further unravel and characterize the
disease processes associated with atherosclerosis,
in particular those associated with vulnerable
plaque formation which is a major risk factor for
stroke and heart attacks,” says Professor Valentin
Fuster, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Mount Sinai
Heart Center, New York. “Through its combined speed,
resolution and sensitivity, Magnetic Particle
Imaging technology has great potential for this
application, and the latest in-vivo imaging results
represent a major breakthrough.”
“We are the first in the world to demonstrate that
Magnetic Particle Imaging can be used to produce
real-time in-vivo images that accurately capture
cardiovascular activity,” says Henk van Houten,
senior vice president of Philips Research and head
of the Healthcare research program. “By adding
important functional information to the anatomical
data obtained from existing modalities such as CT
and MR, Philips’ MPI technology has the potential to
significantly help in the diagnosis and treatment
planning of major diseases such as atherosclerosis
and congenital heart defects.”
Philips’ Magnetic Particle Imaging uses the magnetic
properties of injected iron-oxide nanoparticles to
measure the nanoparticle concentration in the blood.
Because the human body contains no naturally
occurring magnetic materials visible to MPI, there
is no background signal. After injection, the
nanoparticles therefore appear as bright signals in
the images, from which nanoparticle concentrations
can be calculated. By combining high spatial
resolution with short image acquisition times (as
short as 1/50th of a second), Magnetic Particle
Imaging can capture dynamic concentration changes as
the nanoparticles are swept along by the blood
stream. This could ultimately allow MPI scanners to
perform a wide range of functional cardiovascular
measurements in a single scan. These could include
measurements of coronary blood supply, myocardial
perfusion, and the heart’s ejection fraction, wall
motion and flow speeds.
The results obtained from Philips’ experimental MPI
scanner mark an important step towards the
development of a whole-body system for use on
humans. Some of the technical challenges in scaling
up the system relate to the magnetic field
generation required for human applications. Others
lie in the measurement and processing of the
extremely weak signal emitted by the nanoparticles.
Signal measurement and processing are areas where
Philips has a great deal of proven expertise and
experience that it is currently applying to the
task.
The scientific article “Three-dimensional real-time
in vivo magnetic particle imaging” published in
issue 54 of Physics in Medicine and Biology (2009)
can be downloaded from
http://stacks.iop.org/0031-9155/54/L1.
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