Low-cost MRI system for high resolution imaging of the hand

The authors describe two imaging systems built in-house currently in operation, namely, a high resolution finger (distal and interphalangeal joints) imager and a wrist imager. The former is based on an 180 mm bore superconducting magnet and is currently capable of in-plane resolution of 100×200 μm. This system can be run at fields from 0.2 T to 1.0 T and at present is operating at the higher field. The wrist imager is used to image the more complicated joints of the wrist and hand and is based upon a 300 mm bore 2.0 T superconducting magnet currently operating at 0.5 T. Images of 500 μm to 800 μm in-plane resolution are generated