MELVILLE, NEW YORK, - FONAR Corporation (NASDAQ-FONR) has successfully penetrated the U.S. hospital market, as a sale to a member hospital of a major hospital chain(1) is concluded.

"This is the second sale to a hospital within a month for the FONAR Upright^TM MRI," said Raymond V. Damadian, M.D., president and founder of FONAR. "We announced earlier ... the sale of the FONAR Upright^TM MRI to the Wellmont Bristol Regional Medical Center Hospital in Bristol, Tennessee. In addition, a second major hospital chain is currently in active negotiations with FONAR for its first FONAR Upright^TM MRI."

"FONAR's first U.S. based hospital installation occurred in November 2005. It was installed in Pikeville Hospital in Pikeville, Kentucky. Hospitals are recognizing that FONAR's new patented technology available with the FONAR Upright^TM MRI is delivering an important medical benefit to their hospital patients that is not available from other MRI scanners. Other MRI scanners are recumbent-only and do not have access to our company's patented FONAR Upright^TM MRI technology," said Dr. Damadian.

"Hospitals are becoming aware that FONAR's Upright^TM MRI technology provides much more accurate diagnoses of spine problems than are possible with recumbent-only MRIs. This minimizes the risk of doing the wrong surgery because a wrong diagnosis is obtained. They are becoming aware that the patented FONAR Upright^TM MRI imaging technology enables their hospital to achieve better results for their back surgery patients. This in turn permits the hospital to establish itself as a 'Center of Excellence in Spine Surgery' which will have the result of markedly increasing surgical referrals because of their distinction for achieving exceptional surgical outcomes. Hospital CEO's are very much aware of the much needed financial benefits that increased surgery referrals bring when superior surgical outcomes for the patient have been achieved."

"The spine is a weight-bearing organ," Dr. Damadian said, "whose principal function is to bear the body's weight so that the human body can maintain its erect posture. Consequently, the only truly relevant image evaluation of the spine, when a patient is experiencing back pain, is to evaluate it when it is performing its principal function, namely carrying weight."

"It seems to me far from optimal, if not irrelevant, to evaluate the spine in the weightless state, as recumbent-only MRIs do, when the spine's principal task is to 'carry weight'," continued Dr. Damadian. "Indeed, there is the very real prospect of doing the wrong surgery if the diagnosis is wrong. Moreover, the great majority of back pain symptoms experienced by patients, occur when they are erect and actively carrying a weight load. Only the FONAR Upright^TM MRI is tailored to meet the need of examining the fully loaded spine."

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