Royal Philips have announced the results of a three-month pilot in Cheltenham, which has shortened the scan times for their patients with no compromise to image quality, and allowed up to 20 additional patients to be scanned each week, reducing waiting times for a scan.

Local medical imaging charity, Cobalt, introduced Philips’ Compressed SENSE to the latest Ingenia 3.0 Tesla technology in September 2018. Over a period of three months, patient scan times were reduced by 30-50% in some imaging procedures, accommodating up to 20 additional scans per week as a result.

With over 75,000 patients seen each year, both at the Imaging Centre in Cheltenham, at the Institute of Translational Medicine (ITM) Imaging Centre in Birmingham and with the mobile MRI and CT scanners that travel nationally, the introduction of this break-through technology could make a huge difference to patient comfort and convenience, and allow 1,040 more scans to be performed each year.

With the increasing demand, the introduction of Compressed SENSE at the Cobalt centres is supporting practices to clear waiting lists and therefore diagnose more quickly.

“At Cobalt we are looking for ways to streamline the patient pathway through the use of innovative technology” says Karen Hackling-Searle, MRI Department Manager.

“With training provided by Philips, we were very easily able to apply Compressed SENSE to our existing scanning protocols, enabling us to see up to 50% reduction in routine appointment times. By reducing scan time for the individual patient, comfort is increased and risk of the images being affected by motion is reduced.”

“Radiologists want to get the best diagnostic images possible for their patients in a single appointment, while ensuring that their departments work effectively with minimal rescans and rescheduled appointments” says Neil Mesher, CEO, Philips UKI.

A case study highlighting these findings will be available online soon.