North Fulton Regional Hospital's New 3T MRI

     New to the hospital this summer is the powerful 3T MRI.  North Fulton Regional Hospital is one of only a few facilities in the southeast region to offer the exceptional power of 3 Tesla Magnetic Resonance Imaging for patient care.

     With twice the field strength of a conventional magnet, 3T MRI quickly captures images with a level of detail and clarity to enable more precise diagnoses, better pre-surgical planning and enhanced patient care. Compared to some existing MRI scanners, which have magnet strengths of .5 or 1.5 Tesla, the 3T MRI can acquire images up to four times faster while still providing superior quality. This should vastly improve patient comfort when having an MRI scan.

     “This is truly an exciting time for North Fulton Regional Hospital and for patients who live in this area,” said Dr. Mike Jurgens, a radiologist at North Fulton Regional Hospital. “The combination of this advanced technology and the experience and expertise of the radiologists here will allow our patients to receive a high level of service and quality.”

     3T MRI’s higher-field strength improves spatial resolution, resulting in exceptionally clear, detailed images that delineate very fine anatomic detail. This can allow for earlier detection of diseases, such as brain tumors or breast cancer.

     This new technology is also particularly useful in diagnosing diseases of the breast. Not only is high field MRI an excellent method used to evaluate patients with implants to determine if they have implant rupture, but MRI is also a complimentary imaging tool for determination of the presence and extent of breast cancer. A recent publication in the New England Journal of Medicine and the American Cancer Society support the use of MRI as a valuable additional tool in evaluation and screening for breast cancer in appropriate high risk patients. MRI has been shown to find cancers that are sometimes not able to be detected on mammograms or ultrasound. In patients with proven breast cancer, high field MRI can play an important role in the following ways: (1) it can determine the extent of disease in the breast and evaluate for unsuspected cancer in the other breast; both of these can aid in pre-operative surgical and medical planning, possibly saving the patient repeat surgeries and hopefully improving outcomes; (2) it can help with detecting recurrence of breast cancer and with evaluation of response of breast cancer to chemotherapy. 

     Since some of such suspected breast cancers are only detected on MRI, another major advancement with North Fulton Regional Hospital’s 3T MRI and dedicated breast coil and biopsy equipment is the ability to perform MRI-guided breast biopsies – a way to obtain tissue samples of the suspected cancers in a minimally invasive, yet extremely precise, way.

     Dr. Boyd Byrd, a radiologist at North Fulton Regional Hospital, comments that “the combination of this 3T MRI and such advanced capabilities such as breast MRI and MRI-guided biopsies will raise the bar and level of expectation for our patients on women’s health-related issues. Our goal is simply to provide the best service and care possible for our patients. In the highly educated and informed patient population that we service, this should not only prove to advance care, but it should also be in high demand by our concerned patients.”

     The functional imaging capabilities of 3T MRI will have many benefits for imaging the brain. It can often differentiate infection from tumors to avoid unnecessary surgery. The detail of the images allows for more accurate initial diagnoses and for surgical planning techniques that can help improve patient outcomes. 3T MRI can also improve the workup of a stroke. The advanced software packages that come with this high-end scanner assist in determining which stroke may be reversible, which gives patients a greater possibility for long-term improvement.

     Other areas that can also benefit from the new MRI scanner include imaging of the spine, orthopedic imaging and abdominal imaging, including the prostate. The clarity provided in imaging of blood vessels will provide a high level of detail. This may avoid more invasive procedures for the patient, decreasing risk to such patients.

     North Fulton Regional Hospital (NFRH), part of Tenet Georgia, is a 167-bed, acute-care hospital located on Highway 9, Alpharetta Highway, in Roswell. Opened in 1983, NFRH serves North Fulton and surrounding counties through its team of over 1000 employees, 400 staff physicians and 200 volunteers. NFRH is a state-designated Level II trauma center and provides a continuum of services through its centers and programs, including neurosciences, orthopedics, rehabilitation, surgical services, bariatric surgical weight loss, gastroenterology and oncology. The hospital is fully accredited and also is certified as a Primary Stroke Center by the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, the nation’s oldest and largest hospital accreditation agency.

     To learn more about the technology of North Fulton Regional Hospital and its medical staff, visit www.northfultonregional.com.