Failed MRI exams are more common than most facilities track carefully. Patients who cannot complete the scan due to claustrophobia, anxiety, or body habitus represent lost revenue, delayed diagnoses, and often a patient who leaves your facility never to return. Wide-bore MRI systems were developed specifically to address these failures — and the clinical and operational case for them is stronger than many facilities realize.
The Claustrophobia Problem
Surveys of MRI patients consistently find that 4 to 20 percent report significant anxiety related to the enclosed environment, and somewhere between 1 and 5 percent cannot complete the examination. For a system running 15 to 20 examinations per day, even a 3 percent failure rate represents roughly one incomplete scan per day — and the downstream costs include repeat scheduling, sedation administration, and in some cases referral to an open MRI system with lower image quality.
The source of claustrophobic anxiety in MRI is primarily visual and proprioceptive: the patient cannot see out of the bore, can see the bore walls immediately around them, and can feel the proximity of the surrounding structure. Wider bores reduce all three components. A 74 cm oval bore, like that of the Fujifilm Echelon Oval, provides 7 cm more clearance around the patient than a standard 70 cm cylindrical bore — and the oval shape provides more clearance laterally, where patients with broad shoulders and larger body habitus feel the most constraint.
Bariatric Considerations Beyond the Bore
Wide-bore MRI addresses the claustrophobia component of bariatric patient imaging, but the patient table is equally important. Standard MRI tables are 60 cm or narrower and have weight limits of 440 to 550 pounds. A bariatric patient who fits in the bore may still not be comfortably or safely positioned on a narrow table.
The Echelon Oval's 63 cm table is the widest 1.5T patient table in the industry, providing 3 to 4 cm additional lateral support compared to standard tables. The 550-pound weight limit covers the vast majority of the bariatric patient population. The table lowers to 20 inches — wheelchair height — enabling transfers from wheelchairs and gurneys without requiring the patient to step up onto a platform. These features collectively change the imaging experience for patients who are accustomed to medical equipment that does not accommodate them comfortably.
Image Quality in Wide-Bore Systems
The historical concern with wide-bore MRI was that the larger bore would compromise magnetic field homogeneity, which in turn would degrade image quality, particularly for fat suppression and chemical shift imaging. Modern active shimming technology has substantially addressed this concern. HOAST (Higher Order Active Shimming Technology), used in both the Echelon Oval and the ECHELON Synergy, measures field inhomogeneity across the imaging volume and actively compensates with correction coils.
Wide-bore 1.5T systems with modern shimming support diagnostic image quality across all standard clinical applications — neuro, body, MSK, cardiac, vascular — without meaningful compromise compared to standard-bore systems. For most community hospital and outpatient imaging applications, the clinical performance difference between a 70 cm and a 74 to 85 cm bore at 1.5T is negligible.
Operational Impact
The ROI calculation for wide-bore MRI includes both direct revenue recovery (failed scans completed instead of lost) and softer benefits. Facilities with wide-bore systems report measurable reductions in sedation administration for MRI — a clinically meaningful benefit given the monitoring requirements, recovery time, and rare but serious risks of procedural sedation. Patient satisfaction scores for the MRI experience improve with wide-bore systems. Referral patterns often shift as the community learns that a facility has a more accommodating MRI option.
Bottom Line: Wide-bore MRI addresses two of the most common reasons patients cannot complete MRI examinations: claustrophobia and body habitus constraints. The clinical and operational case is well-established. For facilities running significant MRI volume with a general community patient population, the incremental cost of a wide-bore system is typically recovered through reduced scan failures, decreased sedation use, and improved patient retention.
If your looking for a new or replacement MRI system we would love to hear from you. Equipped MD can assist you with your MRI needs from the planning phase to the purchase, installation and applications training as well as the ability to offer extended service contracts on all equipment that we sell. To get started CONTACT US TODAY
