Latest MRI Tests "Come" to McCready

Crisfield – McCready Memorial Hospital has partnered with the nation-wide firm, Alliance HealthCare Services, to bring the latest Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) technology to Crisfield residents.

MRI uses computers, magnetic fields and pulses or radio wave energy, not radiation or surgery, to produce minutely-detailed, multi-dimensional views of the human anatomy. It is fast, non-invasive and safe.

It comes (literally) to Crisfield every Wednesday in an 18-wheel trailer equipped with GE’s Signa© Infinity with EXCITE MRI system. The mobile MRI has traveled to McCready for about 15 years but the Signa© system now onboard is brand new. It was installed a month ago, and is so sophisticated that many shock-trauma or regional hospital facilities don’t have it yet.

Alliance MRI technologist JC Salldin described it: "Patients love it because it’s fast and we don’t have to inject them with radioactive contrast media like the iodine dye used in some x-ray studies. They don’t have to worry about allergic reactions or about excessive doses of radiation.

"Doctors like it because these new MRI images are incredibly detailed; it’s much easier to make a diagnosis.

"We techs love it because we get numerous sequences – sets of views in three dimensions at once. Then, with the new Signa© software, we can manipulate the images on the screen the way you’d turn an object in your hand around top to bottom, side to side or back to front. Even better, we can "slice" the image like a loaf of bread and view each individual layer or magnify them so every structure within is even better defined."

Salldin added that the new MRI is used in the diagnosis of a wide range of conditions including vascular disease, abdominal and brain disorders, and diseases or injuries of muscles or bones or joints.

For some MRI procedures, a dye (hydrogen based, not radioactive) is injected with just a small IV. Patients rarely have reactions to it and the body easily flushes it out.

An example is the Magnetic Resonance Angiogram (MRA). It is used to rule out strokes instead of a traditional angiogram which requires injecting radioactive dye through a catheter into a blood vessel in the groin.

The Alliance MRI is at McCready from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. every Wednesday. It can accommodate up to 30 patients in one day. Tests on the older machine took longer so only 10 people could be tested each week. Alliance, Salldin said, has similar arrangements for mobile testing with hospitals in 46 states.