MRI Consultants believes that bringing the finest 3T MRI unit to Wilmington DE and Newark DE is the most important thing we can do. We want to provide the highest level quality of service to your patients. And we also have a focus on pediatric and cardiac MRI. We have been open since February 2007. Dr Chao has read about 350000 MRI studies in his career. He just wants to use his experience to help you. He has done MRI studies since 1984.
Our address is 1 Centurian Drive, Suite 107, Newark DE 19713. We are located between Old Churchman's Road and Route 7 on Route 4 east.
(FROM THE NORTH) Take I-94 douth to Exit 4(B) - Churchmans Rd. Proceed on Rt 58 - churchmans road to Rt 4 east where you make a right turn. You must drive 0.2 miles past (the next light) Old Churchman's Road. The look for the GO-CARE signs on the grass on the right side. We are the 1st driveway (Abby Medical Center) on the right if you are heading east on Rt 4.
(FROM THE SOUTH) If you are coming via Route 1 - take this till it ends. You will see the Border cafe on the left and as you pass that light - make a left at the next light onto Rt 4 (west) and the next left into a driveway is our office.
Please feel free just to stop by and tour our facilities. You will see that we have designed one of the most patient-friendly MRI offices in the world. We know your time is important so we have internet kiosks which let you check your email and do internet searches in our waiting room. We have video games for your children. We are able to create virtual environments to soothe your children and yourself. You can watch a DVD until you fall asleep. This type of sedation works very well for children. We believe that safe and conservative sedation is better than general anesthesia. We also think that having a calm and inviting atmosphere can contribute to a good MRI study. We need you to stay still as possible for a 30-45 minute study time. We can of course shorten the study time considerably if you are anxious because of the power of the 3T magnet we use. By using a magnet which is the highest clinical field strength we have twice the signal to noise* of a 1.5T scanner and about 5 times the signal to noise of those so-called OPEN MRI units. By being the strongest we have the greatest flexibility to create the best images for you and your doctor. We can sometimes finish the entire study in 8-15 minutes. Lumbar spines are 16 minutes non contrast. We can do a shoulder study in about 12 minutes and can accelerate it to 8 minutes if we have to.
And we give you the images on a CD ROM which you can view on your own home computer (PC only) (and keep for your medical records). You can also copy the CD to give to other health care professionals. We also give copies to all your referring doctors so they can see the full dynamic range of the image on their own PC. Our scanner makes so many images that traditional film is actually obsolete. We make 128 images of your brain in about 5 minutes. Our breast MRI studies are 1950 images in a half hour. By looking at it in full resolution and in full dynamic range on a computer screen your doctor can actually see more than would be printed on a film. Basically the CD images are better than a filmed image. Some of our studies are so many images (2000 for a breast MRI) that you CANNOT film the study.
*signal to noise (SNR) is the standard reference we use to judge how good a picture is. At 3T we have twice the SNR of lower field 1.5T scanners. I like to use the analogy of magapixels in your camera. 3T is like a 12 megapixel camera (and it actually can scan 1024x1024 matric which is actually one megapixel). A 1.5T MRI is like 1/16 the megapixels typically being 256x256 and sometimes (1/4) 512x512. So it is bascially .06 megapixel or .25 megapixel. And if we start with 3T being 12 megapixel then 1.5T is similar to 1 megapixel or 3 megapixel. Not as high in resolution but basically acceptable. And an OPEN MRI with 0.3T would be similar to 0.12 megapixel. This analogy is quite reasonable. Basically the extra information of 3T lets you make diagnoses that you simply cannot at lower fields and this is at no additional cost to the patient. So. if you can - get your study done on a 3T MRI scanner where true 1024x1024 images are possible and we can diagnose superficial temporal arteritis non invasively, find more brain mets, breast tumors or MS plaques.
The ability to non invasively diagnose giant cell arteritis is a unique ability of 3T MRI.
http://www.smmmc.org/clinicalservices/radiology/3T/
http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/mri/mri_during.html