Expanding access to mri: the role of all-purpose mid-field and 1.5-t scanners

Gulani, Vikas, Kandasamy, Devasenathipathy, Webb, Andrew G., Jones, Derek K. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4409-8049 and Sharma, Raju 2025. Expanding access to mri: the role of all-purpose mid-field and 1.5-t scanners. Radiology 316 (3) , e251406. 10.1148/radiol.251406

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Abstract

The year 2023 marked the 50th anniversary of the publication of the landmark paper by Lauterbur, describing zeugmatography, now known as magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI. From the start, the community of MRI scientists has shown immense creativity, pushing the field in numerous scientific and clinical directions that have had great impact, so much so that in 2001, cross-sectional CT and MR imaging were called the most important medical innovations in 50 years, in a survey of physicians. Imaging technology now touches almost all facets of medicine. Transformative progress has been made in magnet design, image acquisition, image reconstruction, and scientific and clinical applications; the technology has been continuously improved and reinvented. However, the high cost of MR equipment has strongly influenced who has access. The cost of MRI technology remains very high, creating a barrier to entry both to working scientifically in the field and to accessing the technology for a vast majority of the world. Scanner density per 1 million inhabitants in various countries, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, ranges from 57.39 to 0.24 (3). The parts of the world located in resource-constrained environments, dominated by the global South, fall at the lower end of this scale and lack access to MR imaging. This remains a challenge for the MR community which has prided itself on innovation but has not yet addressed this problem, which also extends to many rural and low-income urban communities in high-income countries (HICs).

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Psychology Research Institutes & Centres > Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC)
Publisher:	Radiological Society of North America
ISSN:	0033-8419
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	24 September 2025
Date of Acceptance:	14 July 2025
Last Modified:	01 Oct 2025 15:01
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/181306

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