ML & better imaging algorithms should help a lot. Times could be reduced from 45min to 15min [1]. Scanning a beating heart can be reduced from 4min+ to 25sec [2]. Also ML can aid in comparing past images to current ones [3], which would give you quick insights into what changed.
Two ideas for time reduction I haven't seen discussed but perhaps might also help:
1. Don't scan at the same resolution across the whole body each time. Instead, focus on anomalous places that you wanted to monitor from the first high-res scan, or places that look anomalous in low res in the latest scan. Then dial up the resolution in those areas.
2. If better imaging algorithms existed that could account for very slight movements of the body (ala the heartbeat one above), perhaps prep time could be reduced by changing the physical layout of the scanner itself. The whole process of lying down and getting your head or whatever mounted in their plastic frame, then lifting the gurney and slowly sliding it into the machine.. it's all very slow.
Instead of laying down, what if you could just walk in and be upright and get scanned relatively quickly - basically a slightly longer but similar experience to a chest X-ray. There's upright MRIs right now but they're not very high res (0.7tesla instead of 1-3), very few exist, and I'm sure they still take some time to complete scans and have lots of error correction extra scans to correct for patient movement.
However, even with less time in scanner, there's a lot of fixed time cost of scheduling and patient prep (remove all metal things, wear this gown and these ear plugs, please don't freak out its really claustrophobic patient messaging), as well as still needing technicians.
I'm just a patient who's gotten some MRIs but it definitely feels like there's ways to cut the time down significantly.
Your first idea is pretty common. There's usually a very coarse "localizer" scan at the beginning of a session, which is used to set the field of view for subsequent runs. The whole body scans are (at least in theory) meant to find tiny things that are asymptotic though, so I'm not sure that searching through (say) 10mm slabs will help much.
Open, upright scanners do exist, but they're lousy. The goal of the (big) magnet is to produce an incredibly strong, uniform magnetic field. Due to physics, this is much, much easier to do with a torus-shaped magnet than a 'U'shaped one. Even so, there's one point ('isocenter') where the magnetic field is maximally flat and the quality will be best. The gurney moves to point the region of interest (e.g., your head) right to the isocenter. That's why the tech often uses a little light or laser to find your position, rather than just asking you to scooch. Motion is also, as you alluded, a huge problem.
I hate to be discouraging, but I am excited to see people actually thinking about MRI on HN!.
Two ideas for time reduction I haven't seen discussed but perhaps might also help:
1. Don't scan at the same resolution across the whole body each time. Instead, focus on anomalous places that you wanted to monitor from the first high-res scan, or places that look anomalous in low res in the latest scan. Then dial up the resolution in those areas.
2. If better imaging algorithms existed that could account for very slight movements of the body (ala the heartbeat one above), perhaps prep time could be reduced by changing the physical layout of the scanner itself. The whole process of lying down and getting your head or whatever mounted in their plastic frame, then lifting the gurney and slowly sliding it into the machine.. it's all very slow.
Instead of laying down, what if you could just walk in and be upright and get scanned relatively quickly - basically a slightly longer but similar experience to a chest X-ray. There's upright MRIs right now but they're not very high res (0.7tesla instead of 1-3), very few exist, and I'm sure they still take some time to complete scans and have lots of error correction extra scans to correct for patient movement.
However, even with less time in scanner, there's a lot of fixed time cost of scheduling and patient prep (remove all metal things, wear this gown and these ear plugs, please don't freak out its really claustrophobic patient messaging), as well as still needing technicians.
I'm just a patient who's gotten some MRIs but it definitely feels like there's ways to cut the time down significantly.
[1] http://news.mit.edu/2011/better-mri-algorithm-1101
[2] https://phys.org/news/2017-10-technology-mri-scan.html
[3] http://news.mit.edu/2018/faster-analysis-of-medical-images-0...