Bringing Advanced Diagnostic TechniquesToAll (NAPSA)—There’s a great new health care breakthrough for the nearly 130 million Americans who are overweight—including the over 61 million adults who are obese. Every state in the U.S., except Colorado, has an obesity rate of 15 percent or higher, 12 times as much as ten years ago. The health risks of obesity are well documented. Approximately 300,000 adult deaths in the United States each year are due to unhealthy dietary habits and physical inactivity or sedentary behavior. Furthermore, research by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases suggests that 70 percent of diabetes risk in the country can be attributed to excess weight. What’s more, the “New England Journal of Medicine” and the publication “Circulation” say overweight individuals have significantly increased risk of coronary heart disease and cancer. Diagnostic technologies such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are vital to catching signs of these diseases early and providing maps for treatment planning. However, large patients often have been unable to take advantage of MRI’s capabilities. The very issues that make people more vulnerable to these problems also make MRIrelatively impractical, due to the small opening in the imaging system for the body to pass through. However, some medical technology manufacturers are making it possible for overweight people to have access to state-of-the-art diagnostic technology. Siemens Medical Solutions has designed a new “open bore” MRI system, called the MAGNETOM”Espree. Basically, the TMAGNETOM Ep A new type of MRI system can more easily accommodate a range of patients. system has a much larger opening with an unprecedented 2.5 feet of space to ensure ease of access for larger patients, as well as pediatric, elderly and claustrophobic patients. The design also makes it the only open-bore MRI system with a 1.5 Tesla magnet, or high-field imaging power, offering the highest quality imaging so doctors can see the finest details of the human body. This higher field strength, along with other image enhancement features available with the system, means a patient’s weight doesn’t interfere as much with the imaging process as with traditional open MRIdesigns. Offering both high patient comfort and advanced imaging capabilities, the Espree—installed at several sites across the country including the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida and Turville Bay MRI and Radiation Oncology Center in Madison, Wisconsin—is an important advance in diagnostic imaging. To learn more, go to www.usa.siemens.com/medical.
