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June 20, 2025

Invention of an MRI System Enabling Multiplanar Real-Time Cardiac Scanning Without Breath-Holding" Wins the Invention Award at the 2025 National Commendation for Invention

Canon Medical Systems Corporation (headquarters: Otawara, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan; President and CEO: Toshio Takiguchi) received the Invention Award at the awards ceremony of the 2025 National Commendation for Invention, hosted by the Japan Institute of Invention and Innovation. The award was given in recognition of our patent "Invention of an MRI system enabling multiplanar real-time cardiac scanning without breath-holding" (Japan Patent Office No. 6073627).

The National Commendation for Invention was established to promote scientific technology and industrial development in Japan. The awards are presented by the Japan Institute of Invention and Innovation to recognize outstanding technological achievements and advances. This new technology has made it possible to acquire high-frame rate dynamic images with MRI by reducing the scan time per frame. As a result, clear dynamic images of the heart can be acquired during free breathing. This eliminates the need for patients to hold their breath, which expands the range of clinical applications of MRI systems and contributes greatly to the advancement of healthcare.

Conventional methods could not visualize cardiac motion in a sufficient frame rate without acquiring a same motion several times.
In cardiac MRI examinations, an imaging technique known as cine imaging is used to visualize cardiac motion. There are two kinds of cine imaging: segmented cine imaging, which combines partial data acquired over several heartbeats, and real-time cine imaging, which obtains all data required for reconstructing an image in one acquisition. Conventional methods required segmented cine imaging for increasing the frame rate. Real-time cine was not feasible because acquisition of under-sampling required acquisition of additional calibration data for removing artifacts that would have appeared due to the under-sampled acquisition.

This invention provided enabled real-time cine imaging with a sufficient frame rate by eliminating acquisition of the above-mentioned calibration data.
This invention generates static and dynamic region maps by analyzing imaging data containing artifacts, and then estimates the calibration information based on these maps. By utilizing the estimated calibration information, artifacts are removed without acquiring calibration data explicitly. Calibration scans are no longer required, resulting in faster cine imaging compared to conventional high-speed imaging methods. As a result, dynamic scanning can be performed even for patients who have difficulty holding their breath or patients with cardiac arrhythmias, and examination times can be reduced for all patients.
This invention has been incorporated into our MRI systems released in 2018 onward. These systems allow high-speed scanning to be performed with an acceleration factor of up to eight times, which cannot be achieved using conventional scanning methods requiring calibration scans.

[Award winner]
Hidenori Takeshima, Principal Scientist, Advanced Technology Research Department, Research and Development Center, Canon Medical Systems Corporation