The FDA has cleared Prism Clinical Imaging's MR perfusion capability for its products and services for functional MRI, diffusion tensor imaging and advanced physiological studies.

MR perfusion provides the treating physicians with anatomical, functional and physiological image sequences in a single view, which helps the physicians quickly and precisely interpret a patient's condition and develop a treatment plan. In post-treatment monitoring, it can provide an early indication of a tumor's recurrence, according to the Wauwatosa, Wis.-based Prism.

The company said that MR perfusion support begins in Prism Acquire with technologist QA for contrast injection, including preload, and acquisition of time course data on popular MR scanners using gradient-echo and/or spin-echo sequences. Prism Process provides model-free automatic time course analysis with patented algorithms for leakage correction. The resulting cerebral blood volume maps are integrated with other functional and physiological information in Prism View and available for export to PACS, treatment planning and neuronavigation systems.

"Pre-treatment mapping identifies functional structures to avoid during treatment, enabling physicians to deliver treatment that reduces the risk of post-treatment complications," said Paul Schmelzer, president and CEO of Prism.