Philips has announced a groundbreaking suite of AI-enabled Cardiac MR (CMR) innovations designed to transform cardiac imaging by making it faster, easier, and more accessible for both clinicians and patients. To be unveiled at RSNA 2025 in Chicago (November 30 – December 3), these new solutions address longstanding challenges in cardiac MRI, including lengthy exam times, operator dependency, and limitations in patient comfort—ultimately helping clinicians detect and manage heart disease earlier with greater confidence.
Overcoming Traditional Barriers in Cardiac MRI
Cardiac MRI has long been recognized as one of the most powerful diagnostic tools for assessing heart structure and function. Unlike other imaging modalities, it provides exceptional soft-tissue characterization and noninvasive evaluation of cardiac morphology, myocardial tissue properties, perfusion, and microcirculatory dysfunction. However, several significant barriers have historically limited its widespread adoption.
Complexity and exam length have been the primary limiting factors. Traditional cardiac MRI requires imaging in multiple planes, with varying parameters and sequences, resulting in prolonged scan times that demand significant clinical expertise. The heart’s constant motion, combined with the need for patient breath-holds and sensitivity to irregular heartbeats, creates additional challenges in obtaining clear, diagnostic-quality images. Furthermore, limited availability of CMR scanners, high service costs, and the need for specialized operators have restricted access to this valuable diagnostic tool, particularly in smaller healthcare facilities.
A New Generation of AI-Enabled Cardiac Solutions
Philips’ new CMR suite integrates artificial intelligence throughout the entire workflow, addressing these challenges with six key innovations:
SmartSpeed Precise stands as the cornerstone of the new portfolio, featuring integrated Dual AI acceleration technology. This reconstruction technology employs two AI engines: Adaptive CS-NET at the source of the signal and Precise Net on the raw complex imaging data, delivering up to 3x faster imaging and up to 80% sharper images compared to conventional SENSE imaging. This dramatic improvement in speed and quality directly addresses the fundamental trade-off that has plagued MRI: speed versus resolution.
SmartHeart represents a significant leap in automation, offering AI-driven, one-click automation that plans and sets up all 14 standard and advanced cardiac views in under 30 seconds. This capability significantly reduces operator dependence, making cardiac MR more accessible to technologists with varying levels of experience and helping address widespread staffing shortages in radiology departments.
CINE FreeBreathing enables diagnostic-quality imaging without breath-holds, dramatically improving comfort for patients who cannot hold their breath or have irregular heart rhythms. Patients benefit from up to 75% fewer breath-holds with the combined SmartHeart technology, transforming what was once an uncomfortable experience into a more tolerable procedure.
Single-beat acquisition acquires complete cardiac data in a single heartbeat, ensuring stable image quality even for patients with arrhythmias. This innovation directly addresses one of the most persistent technical challenges in cardiac MRI—the difficulty of obtaining quality images from patients with irregular heart rhythms.
Cardiac Motion Correction (Cardiac MoCo) corrects for both cardiac and respiratory motion simultaneously, delivering robust insights for more definitive diagnosis. The AI-powered denoising capabilities excel at distinguishing signal from noise, effectively removing artifacts caused by physiological motion from image data.
CardiacQuant Perfusion provides a non-invasive, non-ionizing quantitative assessment of myocardial perfusion, helping clinicians diagnose subtle perfusion deficits more objectively. This quantitative approach enables a more precise characterization of heart function and pathology.
Enabling New Clinical Opportunities
Beyond improving efficiency and workflow, Philips’ smart cardiac innovations open doors to new service lines and referral opportunities. These include early detection of heart failure and cardio-oncology monitoring—an increasingly important application given the cardiotoxic effects of many cancer treatments.
Quantitative biomarkers such as intramyocardial strain imaging (SENC, MyoStrain) can identify subtle myocardial damage in as little as 10 minutes, supporting proactive management of high-risk patients. This capability is particularly valuable for monitoring patients undergoing chemotherapy, where early recognition of cardiac changes is crucial for adjusting treatment plans and preserving both cardiac function and oncological care.
Sustainable Imaging with BlueSeal Technology
The new AI-powered cardiac solutions are designed to complement Philips’ BlueSeal helium-free MR systems, offering a more sustainable, reliable, and accessible approach to advanced cardiac imaging. BlueSeal technology uses highly efficient micro-cooling that requires only 0.5% of the helium amount used in conventional MRI systems, approximately 7 liters permanently sealed inside the magnet during manufacturing.
This innovation eliminates the need for helium refills and the associated supply chain challenges, while reducing the system’s weight by up to 2,050 kg compared to conventional magnets. The absence of a quench pipe requirement significantly lowers construction costs and enables flexible installations in new locations, including elevated floors, ambulatory surgical centers, and smaller regional clinics. By removing the two highest barriers to entry, helium logistics and the need for sub-specialized operators, Philips is effectively opening new cardiac-imaging market segments that were previously economically unviable for smaller providers.
The Future of Precision Cardiac Care
With this comprehensive suite of AI-powered innovations, Philips reinforces its leadership in cardiac MR and its commitment to transforming the diagnostic pathway through smart, accessible technology. These solutions not only elevate image quality and diagnostic precision but also simplify the MR experience, empowering clinicians to deliver faster, more confident, and more personalized cardiac care.
By enabling diagnostic-quality imaging for more patients, including those who were previously excluded due to breath-holding difficulties or arrhythmias, Philips is helping health systems deliver better care to more people and bringing the benefits of advanced cardiac MR to communities around the world. As cardiovascular disease remains a leading cause of mortality globally, these innovations represent a significant step forward in expanding access to the powerful diagnostic capabilities of cardiac MRI.
