Look for the Waukesha, WI, vendor to emphasize its Signa Excite 3.0T ultra-high-field scanner. GE plans to emphasize the whole-body clinical capabilities of the scanner, with applications ranging from functional imaging to multinuclear spectroscopy to angiographic imaging.
Signa Excite 3.0T is based on GE’s G3 magnet, and features a 45 x 45 x 40-cm field of view, with TRs of 1.5 ms and TEs of 0.5 ms at a 256 x 256 resolution. The scanner’s echo-planar imaging (EPI) echo spacing is 216 microns, with an EPI frame rate of 35 images per second. The system reconstructs images at a rate of 400 images per second.
GE will also tout the scanner’s Quiet Technology feature, which the vendor claims reduces in-core acoustic noise to the levels of a 1.5-tesla scanner without any loss in system performance. Another of Signa Excite 3.0T’s selling points is its low cryogen consumption: 0.03 liters per hour.
