Maui gets high-power
MRI scanner

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Star-Bulletin staff

The Maui Radiology Consultants has opened its MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and Women's Imaging Center in Kahului with the most powerful scanner on the market, neuroradiologist Michael May said.

The consultant group is the first in the state to acquire the powerful General Electric Signa Infinity.1.5 T MRI scanner, said May, who spearheaded the creation of the center. The group also has the first non-hospital-based outpatient MRI in Hawaii, he said.

The new system will enable patients to be scanned four times faster and acquire that much more information. It performs routine procedures such as brain and spine orthopedic imaging, and advanced applications such as vascular, cardiac and spectroscopy.

The software also can create three-dimensional images and turn them so they can be studied from all angles. Images have higher resolution and thus are sharper, allowing the radiologists to evaluate disease with much greater accuracy, said Roy Burt, the chief technologist.

May said the center, located in Triangle Square, will serve as a backup facility to Maui Memorial Medical Center's inpatient MRI scanner.