The article “Remembering an MRI Giant” was written by two professionals in the Magnetic Resonance field, Bart Pierce, B.
S., R.T., (R)(MR), FASRT, and Cheryl, Dubose, ED.D, R.
T.(R)(MR)(CT)(QM).It is clear that the article focuses on the history of Magnetic Resonance Imaging and how substantial the role that Dr. Peter Mansfield played in the development of the Magnetic Resonance scanners was to the medical imaging world. Today, in the United States, doctors request more than 28 million MRI scans to be done per year. Many people attempted for decades to generate the first MRI scanners, and no one had a more notable impact on the technology’s advancement than Sir Peter Mansfield, Ph.D. Dr.
Mansfield was born on October 9, 1933, in Lambeth, England. Due to the World War II evacuations of London, his early education was interrupted. He did not have proper schooling, since he left school at age 15, but he was drawn to science and loved it. Funny enough, his vocational counselor told him that he might not be cut out for the field of science; however, Dr.
Mansfield did not take that advice and ensued on his education in science, anyway. The world is very glad that he didn’t heed that advice. During his employment as a printer’s intern, he took classes five nights a week to finish his secondary schooling.
The Rocket Propulsion Department in Wescott, Buckinghamshire, employed him as a scientific assistant, when he was 18 years old. Then, at age 23, he enrolled at Queen Mary College at the University of London. He then received his undergraduate diploma in 1959 and his doctorate in physics in 1962.
During his time at Queen Mary College, Dr. Mansfield acquired an attraction to nuclear magnetic resonance, the specialty that would turn out to be essential in the advancement of MRI scanners. Initially, scientists were able to sample data from protons in liquid form, which expelled deposited energy in milliseconds. It was much more difficult of a task to get sample data from solids, for instance, the human body, where deposited energy is expelled in microseconds. There was not a lot of research on nuclear magnetic resonance because scientist thought that it was impossible to collect data from solid material. However, Dr. Mansfield knew that more research needed to be done.
So, he developed a tool proficient enough to sample solid materials within four microseconds. This discovery turned out to be vital in the development of MRI’s usage today. He and his research team added onto that previous effort to construct a machine proficient of generating an image of the human anatomy. The first MRI scan of living anatomy was the finger of Dr. Mansfield’s Ph.
D. student, which took place in the late 1970s using a computer with only four kilobytes of memory. Every time they took an image of the finger it took approximately 10 minutes to scan. The first ever magnetic resonance scan of the entire human body was accomplished 40 years ago. In 1978, Dr. Mansfield produced the first image of an entire human body. It was of himself, he laid in the scanner for 50 minutes and when he got out of the machine he was delighted to have attained the first full-body scan, but was dissatisfied with the length of time it took. He knew that if this was going to be a useful medical tool, the scan times would have to be considerably shorter.
Dr. Mansfield did indeed continue on to accomplish that goal. His efforts with gradients rendered MRI scanners a reality in the medical field. Dr. Mansfield utilized mathematical analysis of signals to reduce scanning times with his echo planar imaging technique. All of his hard work turned out to be the foundation for more sophisticated applications, consisting of, functional magnetic resonance imaging. Dr. Mansfield along with Paul Lauterbur, Ph.
D. shared the prestigious award of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2003.Dr. Mansfield, a prominent man of science with a relentless dedication to achieve his goals, pass away on February 8, 2017, at age 83, but not without leaving an amazing legacy behind.
MRI’s have had a momentous effect in many parts of medicine today. Due to its high-quality image resolution, tissue representation, and functional valuation of a variety of organs and systems, MRI’s have turned into an essential modern technology in medical practice and medical research. MRI’s have abundant flexibility in assessing anatomic structures in random imaging planes. By means of ultrafast MRI methods, images of areas of importance can be attained in a very short period of time, with no need of physiologic motion artifacts.
MRI angiography removes the necessity for catheterization and delivers extremely comprehensive images of the vascular anatomy, as well as, of structures as little as the coronary artery. The MRI cholangiopancreatography delivers answers equivalent to those of endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography in many hepatobiliary diseases. Functional MRI’s are a new way to assess physiologic function. Exploring the metabolic activity of normal and diseased organs and structures has been done by using MRI spectroscopy. The applications of MRI’s in medical settings and biomedical research are expanding. Only God knows how long it would have been before someone else would have made discoveries about the MRI if Dr. Mansfield had not done his research over this subject and at the time that he did. I’m sure that there were many people that were thankful that he made such great strides when he did.
It undoubtedly, diagnosed and saved many lives because of the speed improvement and high-quality images.
