As Cabinet Peaks Medical Center in Libby continues to expand and modernize at its new location, the center’s departments are attempting to accommodate more patients. 

A new machine in the imaging department will allow for larger patients and for patients with metal joint implants.

Dave Broderick, Cabinet Peaks’ imaging department manager said the new machine — a large bore magnetic resonance imaging machine — was sorely needed.

“We started shopping more than two years ago for a new MRI,” he said. “Our main purpose in getting this one is just to get a larger-bore machine that can handle bigger patients or claustrophobic ones.”

The machine uses a new technology called the MAVRIC SL Sequence to look at patients with metal in their bodies.  

“Anything metal is not friendly in an MRI,” Broderick said. “It causes something called an artifact in the image — just a black void.”

When the machine scans, the metal used in the medical devices shows up as a gaping black hole, rendering much of the image useless. 

Many patients who could benefit from close examination of tissue already have something such a pin in their leg or a joint replacement.

X-rays and computed tomography (or CT) scans are still helpful for patients with medical implants, but they are far less accurate than MRIs for pinpointing problems.

“An X-ray has about 40 shades of gray,” Broderick said. “A CT scan has about 400 shades, but an MRI has 4,000.”

The many different shadings allow for a closer look at tissue. With the MAVRIC machine in Libby — the first of its kind in Montana — even tissue right next to metal implants can be scrutinized. 

“The new technology mitigates that artifact,” Broderick said. “You still can’t see through the prosthetic itself, but can see clear definition around it.”

This new technology, along with the wider bore for larger patients, will allow Cabinet Peaks Medical Center to see patients that might have had to travel to larger hospitals in metropolitan areas.