Siemens Healthineers' new high-end 3T MR system, Magnetom Vida, was launched this week at the University Hospital Tübingen in Germany.

It's the first system equipped with the company's BioMatrix technology, which adjusts the system to fit the different anatomical and physiological aspects of each patient.

"We want to generate standard and consistent, reproducible clinical outcomes with our MR systems," Dr. Christoph Zindel, senior vice president of MR at Siemens, said in a press conference. "The challenge is that when you are looking around we find that we are all different in many aspects; shapes, physiology and so on."
Siemens spent over five years developing the BioMatrix technology. The Magnetom Vida with BioMatrix was first installed at the University Hospital Tübingen and has been undergoing clinical trials since December 2016.

The BioMatrix Sensors in the table automatically track patients' respiratory patterns to determine their ability to hold their breath during the exam, making it especially useful for asthma patients.

The BioMatrix Tuners help to avoid rescans and improves the quality and reproducibility of whole-body diffusion. For example, during cervical spine exams it uses intelligent coil technology to automatically set the optimal scan parameters based on the patient's anatomy.

It also controls the scan parameters in real time to stay consistent with the patient's anatomy and avoid distortions, which can render the diffusion image non-diagnostic.

At Tübingen, the Magnetom Vida reduced measurement times for musculoskeletal and prostate imaging compared to previous MR systems. The image quality is also superior — the signal-to-noise ratio is up to 30 percent higher.

The system uses intelligent body models to automatically move the patient table into the correct scan position. There is also a touch screen interface to allow for one-touch positioning.

To help hospitals lower the total costs of ownership of the system over its entire life cycle, Siemens made improvements in energy consumption. The Eco-Power technology switches components off when they are not needed for longer periods of time.

As a result, the system consumes 30 percent less energy than the industry average for 3T MR systems, reported by the European Coordination Committee of the radiological, electromedical and health care IT industry.

"Energy consumption matters because many of our customers don't just have one system, they have more systems, so it sums up easily," said Zindel.

Magnetom Vida is on display at the European Congress of Radiology underway in Vienna, Austria.

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