Professor Cheng of the Veteran's General Hospital's Imaging Center will present the technology, procedures and benefits of his center's work. Dr. Hui-Cheng Cheng's makes use of whole-body MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) and MRA (Magnetic Resonance Angiography) (which produces images of blood flow) for preventive medicine.

While MRI is generally used for supplementary diagnosis for already suspect cases, Dr. Cheng advocates MRI scans for general preventative checkups. MRI provides much more accurate and cost effective means of diagnosis than traditional methods. A single scan produces up to 1000 images for a complete checkup in one visit without any radiation. Dr. Cheng will review current traditional health screening procedures; present his mission of targeting the three leading causes of death: cancer, stroke, and heart disease and explain why "Seeing is believing".

MRI provides sharp images of tissues, organs, and blood vessels inside the body without hazardous radiation or dangerous surgery. Dr. Cheng predicts that MRI will replace harmful X-ray and offer more telling diagnostic data than blood tests. Dr. Cheng sees the role of imaging expanding form diagnosis to prevention. "Medical imaging can detect tumors at a very early stage, when they are only 1 cm large, while blood tests only react to tumors that are already well advanced," he says. "A recent New York study of 1,000 patients has shown that most lung tumors detected by CT are smaller than 2 cm, and 80% of these can be cured." MRI allows clinicians to detect structural abnormalities caused by tumors, trauma, or tissue degeneration, possibly even before symptoms appear. Whole-body MRI examination is supplemented by an ultrasound scan. A complete checkup can be performed with a single examination taking about one hour. Each examination acquires some 600 to 1,000 images.

Read the article One-Stop-Shop Imaging Center in Taiwan to learn about Dr. Hui-Cheng Cheng's life work at the VGH-HT Imaging Center where he makes use of whole-body MRI and MRA for preventive medicine, offering creative and alternative means of diagnosis.