New Software Simplifies Cardiac MRI Workflow

An advanced application that captures seven dimensions of data (three in space, one in time, and three in vectorial) could greatly simplify cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

The GE Healthcare ViosWorks software was designed to simultaneously provide key elements of a cardiac MRI exam, including anatomy, function and flow, thus helping to solve several cardiac MRI challenges at once. The delivery of three-dimensional (3D) spatial- and velocity-encoded dataset at every time point during the cardiac cycle allows the software to yield high resolution, time-resolved images of the beating heart, thus supplying a measure of the speed and direction of blood flow at each location.

The exam is simplified for the patient by using a free-breathing scan that can be acquired in less than 10 minutes, compared to a conventional cardiac MRI that takes over an hour to complete, helping to reduce the error-prone and time-consuming aspect of slice positioning. This is achieved due to the fact that co-registered anatomic images can be used to assess cardiac functioning and contextualize flow abnormalities. ViosWorks is a product of GE Healthcare (GE; Little Chalfont, United Kingdom), and is designed for use on the Signa Pioneer 3.0T, Signa Explorer, and Signa Creator 1.5T MRI scanners.

A key element of ViosWorks is the Arterys (San Francisco, CA, USA) cloud-based medical imaging, machine learning platform that is designed to deliver ultra-fast visualization and quantification with automatic analysis. Arterys uses software as a service (SaaS) analytics powered by powerful algorithms that allow the large datasets to be evaluated in real time, via cloud-based software that significantly reduces the time spent on data processing, and helps promote new visualization routines.

“We are excited to collaborate with Arterys and introduce this innovative cardiac MR solution that can capture seven-dimensional viewing capabilities of the heart,” said Ioannis Panagiotelis, chief marketing officer of Global MR at GE Healthcare. “With cardiovascular disease as the leading cause of death in the world, we believe that this cloud-enabled technology will help us to provide value not only for clinicians by delivering advanced visualization and quantification of cardiovascular function, but also help simplify cardiovascular examinations and address significant patient needs in cardiovascular disease.”

“We are extremely pleased to announce our partnership with GE Healthcare in conjunction with the launch of our first cardiac care solution, the first self-learning system of its kind to visualize and quantify blood flow leveraging a standard MRI machine,” said Fabien Beckers, PhD, founder and CEO of Arterys. “This pivotal milestone for the company is directly in line with our vision to transform medical imaging by bringing automatic quantitative data and deep learning to healthcare applications through a GPU smart cloud platform that can be applied to many areas of medical imaging including neurology and oncology.”

GE Healthcare hopes that the new, simplified process will help it gain ground in the US market, where it currently only makes up about one percent of MRI exams, due to the time and complexity needed.

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