On‐site construction of a point‐of‐care low‐field MRI system in Africa

• Published in: NMR in biomedicine Vol. 36; no. 7; pp. e4917 - n/a
• Main Authors: Obungoloch, Johnes, Muhumuza, Ivan, Teeuwisse, Wouter, Harper, Joshua, Etoku, Ivan, Asiimwe, Robert, Tusiime, Patricia, Gombya, George, Mugume, Chris, Namutebi, Mary Hellen, Nassejje, Mary Anthony, Nayebare, Maureen, Kavuma, Joseph Mark, Bukyana, Benedicto, Natukunda, Faith, Ninsiima, Patience, Muwanguzi, Abraham, Omadi, Phillip, Gijzen, Martin, Schiff, Steven J., Webb, Andrew, O'Reilly, Tom
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01-07-2023
• Subjects: Accessibility; Africa; Aluminum; Assembly; Biological products; Coils; Construction; Equipment Design; halbach magnets; Income; Knowledge management; low field MRI; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Magnets; open‐source spectrometer; Point-of-Care Systems; point‐of‐care MRI; Portability; Sustainability; sustainable design; Technology; Trolleys; Africa; low field MRI; halbach magnets; Accessibility; sustainable design; open-source spectrometer; point-of-care MRI
• ISSN: 0952-3480; 1099-1492; 1099-1492
• DOI: 10.1002/nbm.4917

Purpose
To describe the construction and testing of a portable point‐of‐care low‐field MRI system on site in Africa.
Methods
All of the components to assemble a 50 mT Halbach magnet‐based system, together with the necessary tools, were air‐freighted from the Netherlands to Uganda. The construction steps included individual magnet sorting, filling of each ring of the magnet assembly, fine‐tuning the inter‐ring separations of the 23‐ring magnet assembly, gradient coil construction, integration of gradient coils and magnet assembly, construction of the portable aluminum trolley and finally testing of the entire system with an open source MR spectrometer.
Results
With four instructors and six untrained personnel, the complete project from delivery to first image took approximately 11 days.
Conclusions
An important step in translating scientific developments in the western world from high‐income industrialized countries to low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs) is to produce technology that can be assembled and ultimately constructed locally. Local assembly and construction are associated with skill development, low costs and jobs. Point‐of‐care systems have a large potential to increase the accessibility and sustainability of MRI in LMICs, and this work demonstrates that technology and knowledge transfer can be performed relatively seamlessly.
We describe the construction and testing of a portable point‐of‐care low‐field MRI system on site in Africa. All of the components to assemble a 50‐mT Halbach magnet‐based system, together with the necessary tools, were air‐freighted from The Netherlands to Uganda. With four instructors and six untrained personnel, the complete project from delivery to first image took approximately 11 days.