Practice Is First In Connecticut Offering Private Patients

Use New Magnetom Technology

DANBURY — Representatives from Housatonic Valley Radiological Associates (HVRA), an independent diagnostic imaging provider with offices in Danbury and Southbury, announced recently that the practice will officially open a new 1,800-square-foot MRI center this month at its Danbury location. The office will feature Siemens’ Magnetom Avanto, the newest 1.5 Tesla magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system with Tim™ (total image matrix) technology. 

HVRA’s new MRI facility will be commemorated on Thursday, June 29, during a ribbon-cutting ceremony with Mark D. Boughton, mayor of Danbury.

Connecticut Governor M. Jody Rell, who is a breast cancer survivor, offered congratulatory remarks in a prepared statement.

“On behalf of the State of Connecticut, I take pleasure in congratulating Housatonic Valley Radiological Associates on the occasion of its ribbon cutting ceremony of the new MRI suite,” the Governor wrote. “For many years, HVRA has served the State of Connecticut with distinction.  The staff at HVRA has made significant contributions to health care in Connecticut and our state is proud to be the home of such a vital part of our community.  I commend the staff at HVRA for their hard work and dedication to service.”

According to Nancy Gillen, vice president of the MR division of Siemens Medical Solutions, her company is continually working to provide the gold standard in imaging to all practitioners, from independent imaging centers to national medical facilities.

“We are pleased that HVRA has become the first private facility in Connecticut to use the most advanced MRI technology available today,” Ms Gillen said.

Dr Jeffrey Stein, director of MRI services at HVRA, said  he and his staff is excited to bring cutting edge MRI technology to the region.

“There is no limit to the potential the Avanto has in diagnosing disease,” Dr Stein said. “This technology truly brings MRI into the 21st Century with revolutionary image quality and patient comfort.”

Adding to patient comfort, the Avanto features a low-to-the-floor design making it accessible for more patients, including individuals up to 400 pounds. For claustrophobic patients, its more open short-bore, feet-first design and faster scanning provides a significantly more comfortable experience. 

For the first time, it is possible to perform a whole-body scan quickly from head to toe as a single examination, Dr Stein added.

“Conventional MR systems were only able to scan individual areas of the body,” he said.

Dr Conrad Ehrlich, medical director at HVRA, said the decision to introduce this new highly advanced MRI technology, along with a new multidetector CT scanner and a new PACS system, is a key part of HVRA’s drive to deliver the highest quality service to patients and referring physicians in a private personalized outpatient setting.

“Patients will enjoy a 97 percent noise reduction, a claustrophobic-friendly, feet-first and more open design, faster scanning times and new diagnostic capabilities,” Dr Ehrlich said. “Most claustrophobic patients will no longer have to travel out of the community and settle for lower quality exams performed on so-called ‘open’ MRIs. We will be able to offer whole spine imaging, white matter fiber tracking, whole body imaging for the evaluation of metastatic disease, MR angiography of the entire body if necessary, and breast MRI with computer guided biopsy capabilities.”

Dr Ehrlich said his associates in the region, including neurologists, neurosurgeons, orthopedic surgeons, oncologists, breast surgeons, and vascular surgeons, will greatly appreciate the Avanto’s new capabilities and superior image quality. In fact, he added, “all physicians and patients will love the Avanto.”

In regard to its technical capacities, the Magnetom Avanto offers seamless metastasis evaluation, whole CNS imaging and visualization of vascular diseases. It also features Siemens’ unique iPAT (integrated parallel acquisition technique) that provides fast image acquisition with parallel imaging in all dimensions, including head to toe, front to back, and side to side. 

Phoenix software allows clinicians to transfer image protocol parameters from a CD, making it possible to initiate a scan directly from the image.  The Magnetom Avanto is the first Siemens MR system to fully incorporate Tim technology, the first whole body surface coil concept and RF technology. 

Siemens Tim technology enables flexible coil combinations to encompass local high resolution imaging to large anatomical coverage up to 205 cm (6’9”).

Other systems require the radiologist to change coils and reposition the patient three times for a whole-body MRI procedure. Tim also enables the use of integrated parallel acquisition techniques (such as syngo® Sense and syngo Grappa, in all body regions, reducing examination times. As a result, image quality is increased by up to 100 percent signal-to-noise ratio and acquisition times are shortened.

Housatonic Valley Radiological Associates (HVRA) is an independent diagnostic imaging provider with more than 25 years of experience serving Connecticut’s Danbury, Southbury, and New Milford communities. HVRA holds ACR accreditations for High Field MRI, Mammography, Spiral CT Scan, Radiography/Fluoroscopy, and Obstetrics, General, Vascular and Breast Ultrasound. 

The office also partners with Newtown-based Kevin’s Community Center in providing some diagnostic imaging for KCC’s Newtown patients. HVRA received an award of recognition for its generous donations of expertise and technical diagnostic services to KCC in 2005.

For more information on HVRA, visit www.hvradi-ology.net.