[Survey report on magnetic resonance equipment damage in areas in Miyagi Prefecture affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake].

A questionnaire comprising 14 items, inquiring about the state of damage, whether safety could be ensured, and progress of repair and restoration was distributed to 984 facilities in seven prefectures on the Pacific coast as part of a fact-finding survey of damage caused to magnetic resonance (MR) devices by the Great East Japan Earthquake. In all, 458 responses (46.6%) were collected. In Miyagi Prefecture alone, 65 responses from 105 questionnaires were collected (response rate: 61.9%). The overall incidence of damage was 19.2%, with 57 facilities (12.4%) reporting that displacement of the magnets was the most common problem. The damage event rate in Miyagi Prefecture was 51.3%, with displacement of the magnet being highest at 17 cases (26.2%). There was a high rate of 13 cases (26.5%) of chiller and air conditioning failures and a rapid loss of He in ten MR scanners (20.4%). Notably, 87.8% of facilities in Miyagi Prefecture (24.5% of the total) were affected by earthquakes exceeding 6 on the Japanese Seismic Intensity Scale. Flood damage caused by the tsunami was also seen along the Sanriku coast to Sendai City (six MR scanners, 50% of the total), and was typical of the damage seen in Miyagi Prefecture.

[Effects of region of interest settings in signal-to-noise ratio measurement of clinical images using arrays of multiple receiver coils].

In many clinical imaging procedures using arrays of multiple receiver coils, a uniform sensitivity process is performed using the sensitivity distribution from the body coil. This causes the noise to be uneven, and background noise cannot be used when measuring the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The SNR of clinical images with sensitivity correction using arrays of multiple receiver coils sets the region of interest (ROI) in the region where the signal is uniform, and is limited to the identical ROI method where measurements are taken with noise from the identical region. When SNR is measured with the identical ROI method, uneven noise caused by sensitivity correction as well as the signal strength distribution within the ROI of the object is reflected in the noise. Therefore, evaluation must be performed in as localized a position as possible. Measurement error becomes small on images with higher resolution, and if ROI larger than 10×10 pixels can be set in a region of even signal, SNR measurement of clinical images with less underestimation may be possible.