Many improvements in health care are the result of MRI. Doctors use the noninvasive imaging technique to diagnose strokes, brain injuries, tumors, and other conditions of the brain and spinal cord. The technique can image many other internal organs, and doctors often prefer it to other imaging techniques, such as CT scanning and positron emission tomography, because of MRI’s lack of ionizing radiation.
Yet despite a half century of advances since the invention of MRI, the technology is still hard to access in low- and middle-income countries. The US has roughly 40 scanners per million people, but the average across all African countries is only about 0.7 scanners per million people.1 A typical 1.5- or 3-tesla instrument uses a heavy superconducting magnet, which must be kept cool with expensive liquid helium, and power-hungry imaging electronics. In addition, the room housing the machine must be built with extensive shielding to...
