This looks small enough that it might just be possible to keep it in an ambulance, which would be an absolute game changer for treating stroke.

Stroke treatment medication must be taken IMMEDIATELY to avoid permanent brain damage, but there is a chance that the medication will kill you depending on the type of stroke, and the only way to find out what kind of stroke it is is with MRI.

Being able to treat stroke before a patient is MRI'd in a hospital will be a massive benefit for humanity.

I basically want to say the same thing as u/lostlogin said about CT for determination of what stroke it is, but maybe add some details.

You're basically looking at ischemic vs hemorrhagic stroke. Ischemic stroke can get tPA or thrombectomy (within a 4.5hr window based on current data). We're a bit more limited with hemorrhagic stroke, but some surgeries are successful (clipping, coil embolization, etc).

From most studies, the sensitivity of noncontrast head CT ruling out a hemorrhagic stroke (most likely due to an aneurysmal hemorrhage) is around 98-99%.[1] These tests are fast, take maybe 2-3 minutes, and the entire hospital will move heaven and earth for a stroke alert.

Why is this important? Because you're essentially limited by transport to the hospital. The MRI in ambulance will save you maybe 20-30 minutes at most. It may help some, sure, but I don't think it would be as massive a benefit as you would expect.

You could argue that we should be administering tPA en route to hospital, and that can certainly be debated. I would say that the risks of tPA administration are pretty high, and should be done while in a hospital to manage any adverse effects such as hemorrhage. Maybe if we develop better safer clot busting tools we could improve morbidity after stroke.

My vote would be to increase preventative care, so that people stop having as many strokes. It would likely be more cost effective in the long run, but I'm no economist.

P.S. your fun fact for the day is that hospitals generally lose money from strokes and tPA administration. The real money is in procedures like thrombectomy! And maybe live close to a stroke center if you're at high risk (diabetes, hypertension, coaguable)

[1] https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/STROKEAHA.115.011386

To follow up a bit more, there isn’t really any data on the time required for a mobile MRI, but we already have ambulances fitted out with ct for stroke detection operating in many cities

https://www.ambulance.vic.gov.au/stroke-ambulance-continues-...

> increase preventative care, so that people stop having as many strokes.

How is that done?

Off the top of my head: Increase access to primary care Encourage behavioral change in people that help prevent disease (stop smoking, or don't eat sugary foods, etc) Increase treatment affordability for preventing disease Add on cheap treatment options if patients fail the above (more aspirin, statin, metformin, etc)

It looks just a touch too big, and weighs 440lb. Another issue is power. While it can plug into a standard wall outlet, the total power used for a scan might not be convenient for the ambulance to supply. You'd likely have to design a vehicle around it to account for space/weight/power needs.

However, this could be a interesting product for field hospitals used in disaster relief. It could also be of use at medical facilities in more rural areas, where the purchase and/or use of a conventional MRI may not be feasible.

This.

I come here just to say the same thing, it's a game changer for stroke treatment since for the ischemic stroke (most common type of stroke) every minute lost means millions of neurons loss in the brain that cannot be recovered.

Now there is a new procedure to "fish" and remove the blood clots that are blocking the blood vessels.

Anyone know the selling price for this portable MRI? I can see that it's not for any ambulance but definitely can be equipped for the special type of ambulance vehicles catering for the stroke treatment center.

Is there space in the ambulance for such a machine? Can it be operated while the ambulance is moving? If not, is it better to get the patient to the hospital quicker or wait to perform the scan?

What about senior care centers that could have one of these but couldn't have an MRI?

Might be more useful in rural hospitals where large machines are not cost effective.

You can often differentiate between types of stroke with CT.

You're right, but the article says:

> Using the portable MRI device, researchers from Yale found evidence of ischemic stroke, hemorrhagic stroke, subarachnoid hemorrhage, traumatic brain injury, and brain tumors in patients presenting with neurological symptoms at Yale New Haven Hospital.

Potentially a good use of this is so we can stop running CT's on children that banged their head on something. Kids do that all the time and 99.999% of the time it's nothing but hospitals run CT's to cover their butts.

200 kilograms. Motorized wheels. It's not very portable yet. Emergency room, yes; ambulance, no.

A (likely obese) human can be of that weight, so it wouldn't be too hard to fit in an ambulance.

Right. Doesn’t need to be in every ambulance, only those fitted for stroke response. Don’t constrain response times just because you need to make the vehicle a larger than usual.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_stroke_unit