Manchester United FC welcomes first-class MRI for quick, quiet & quality sports imaging
Routine monitoring of player health and specialist sports medicine research projects at Manchester United Football Club have received a boost with the introduction of the Vantage Galan 3T MRI from Canon Medical Systems UK. The system has taken its place in the club’s state-of-the-art imaging centre at Old Trafford training ground alongside CT and ultrasound imaging systems supplied as part of Canon Medical’s role as ‘Official Medical Systems Partner’.
Manchester United FC’s doctors and physiotherapists will benefit from quicker MRI scans and more detailed image outputs via the Vantage Galan MRI, ensuring optimum health planning of the team’s premier and youth league players. Reactive and proactive health surveillance, performance management & injury grading will also be optimised from enhanced functionality of the system, delivering sharper, clearer images for decision making. The players undergoing MRI procedures will benefit from a quieter and more comfortable scan due to Canon Medical’s Pianissimo and Pianissimo Zen technology that significantly reduce noise in and around the MRI environment.
“Even the smallest injury in elite sports has implications. Having the right diagnostic tool at the peak of its development is vital to diagnosing subtle injuries that could impact player health,” states Dr Steve McNally, Head of Football Medicine & Science at Manchester United Football Club. “Using high resolution MRI therefore helps to identify very minute intra-articular joint injuries, muscle oedema changes or very small fibre tears.”
He continues, “We are very pleased with the ease of image acquisition and quality from the new Vantage Galan MRI for diagnostic purposes. We are looking forward to the additional opportunities the new technology provides for specialist imaging and post-processing applications that will enhance our ‘performance imaging’ and athlete health surveillance projects.”
The Vantage Galan 3T MRI from Canon Medical enhances image quality for more confident diagnoses and makes examinations faster for better workflow efficiencies. It offers a maximum gradient amplitude of 45 mT/m, a sew rate of 200 T/m/sec and employs propriety Pure RF Rx and Pure RF Tx technology dramatically increasing the signal to noise (SNR).
Scan planning can also be enhanced with ForeSee View, a new tool that previews slice planning in real time, particularly useful for anatomies that are traditionally difficult to scan. In sports medicine this is particularly useful when imaging orthopaedic joints and ligaments. This includes the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), a key knee joint ligament most often torn during sports that involve rapid change in direction and sharp stops in movement. The ForeSee View functionality will reduce the need for re-scanning and can save time on planning for all body regions.
EasyTech Cardiac incorporating CardioLine+, an application that accurately and automatically identifies all the right and left ventricular and cardiac valvular planes, is also included in the Manchester United FC Vantage Galan MRI installation. It reduces examination times to a minimum, enabling challenging cardiac examinations to be performed easily as part of daily routines. This functionality will be particularly useful for proactive sporting health surveillance campaigns, for example, cardiology profiling that is required every two years on anyone undertaking vigorous training and competitive sports matches.
“Adding the Vantage Galan MRI to our system line-up at Manchester United Football Club is a natural progression of providing our best-of-breed imaging solutions over the last 6 years to monitor the very highest echelon of professional athletes,” states Mark Hitchman, Managing Director at Canon Medical Systems UK. “At the same time, the Galan MRI will be used for research projects that have the potential to cascade understanding of anatomical conditions to benefit wider health populations.”
Canon Medical has been Manchester United Football Club’s ‘Official Medical Systems Partner’ since 2012 providing CT, MRI and Ultrasound systems to ensure that the world-class players and youth academy receive the best possible diagnostic care. Other football medicine partnerships include FC Barcelona, Real Madrid and English national league club Barnet FC in North London and Spanish La Liga team RCD Espanyol. Wider sports medicine collaborations across Europe include basketball, cycling, ice hockey, rugby and tennis.