A specialist veterinary hospital in Runcorn has invested more than £1 million in a state-of-the-art MRI scanner.
The Philips BlueSeal MR 5300 will further help Linnaeus-owned Northwest Veterinary Specialists (NWVS) offer more targeted and effective clinical care for all pets referred to the practice in Sutton Weaver.
Hospital manager Jenny Pearson says the new scanner, together with the dedicated NWVS diagnostic imaging team, will enable the practice to see more patients and deliver quicker and more accurate results to support diagnosis.
She said: “A large proportion of our patients will require some form of diagnostic imaging to help diagnose their specific problems and plan their treatment.
“Every patient is unique and this new scanner will help us deliver effective, personalised and targeted care.
“It is very user-friendly as it incorporates a wealth of AI-driven technologies to simplify and automate the most complex clinical and operational tasks.
“It is also easy to position around the patient for comfort and produces high-quality, high-resolution imaging which is essential when visualising the smaller anatomies.
“This significant investment will help us meet the rising demand for imaging, enabling us to diagnose an increasing number of clinically challenging cases accurately, efficiently and cost-effectively.”
Luca Motta, head of neurology at NWVS, added: “This high-field MRI scanner gives a higher signal to noise ratio, leading to superior image resolution and also shorter scan times when compared to a low field machine.
“In addition, thanks to the new software we can run sequences which we could not carry out on the previous low-field MRI. It also means we can perform MRI on large breed dogs without sacrificing the image resolution.”
Pictured (from left): NWVS Imaging and Anaesthesia teams with the new state-of-the-art MRI scanner. Joanna Raszplewicz, Mary Tonge, Emma Coogan, Marius Conradie, Annette Kerrins, Heather Challinor, Casey Halpin-Parr
