Raymond
V. Damadian, MD, conceived the idea of a using NMR
(MR) to detect medical disease and proposed the MR
body scanner to accomplish it. To prove its feasibility,
he conducted experiments and discovered that cancer
tissues produce abnormal MR signals compared to normal
tissues, with relaxation times that are markedly elevated
relative to normal tissues. He also discovered that
the healthy tissues themselves exhibit significant
differences in MR relaxation times. The relaxation
differences among the normal tissues supply the contrast
needed to see anatomic detail that was missing in other
medical imaging technologies (x-ray and ultrasound).
Recognizing that the abnormal MR signals generated
by cancers could be used to detect cancers non-invasively,
he went on to build the first whole body magnetic resonance
scanner, which he named Indomitable, and to achieve
the first MRI scan of the live human body, as well
as the first scan of a patient with cancer. The tissue
signals he discovered and their marked differences
among the normal tissues and also between normal tissue
and diseased tissue have remained the source of all
MRI images today.
THE TRUTH OF HISTORY, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS – THE
SAME YEAR AS THE NOBEL PRIZE
“The
initial concept for the medical application of NMR,
as it was then called, originated with the discovery
by Raymond Damadian in 1971 that certain mouse tumours
displayed elevated relaxation times compared with
normal tissues in vitro. This exciting discovery
opened the door for a complete new way of imaging
the human body where the potential contrast between
tissues and disease was many times greater than that
offered by X-ray technology and ultrasound ….
NMR developed into a laboratory spectroscopic technique
capable of examining the molecular structure of compounds,
until Damadian’s ground-breaking discovery
in 1971.”
“So what were NMR researchers doing between the forties and the seventies - that's a long time in cultural and scientific terms. The answer: they were doing chemistry, including Lauterbur, a professor of chemistry at the same institution as Damadian. NMR developed into a laboratory spectroscopic technique capable of examining the molecular structure of compounds, until Damadian's ground-breaking discovery in 1971.”
(MRI from Picture to Proton,
Cambridge University Press, 2003)
NOBEL VIOLATION
OF THE TRUTH
In 2003, The Noble Prize for
the MRI was awarded, not to Dr. Damadian, but
to two nuclear magnetic resonance scientists.
One employed a gradient, invented 50 years earlier
by others, to improve the image Dr. Damadian
discovered. Another was a member of a group who
found a better way to use gradients to make an
MRI image. Although the prize allowed for three
winners, Dr. Damadian was passed over.
The award is a calculated affront to
the truth of science.
It is also an affront to the will
of Alfred Nobel, in which he specified that the award
in medicine can only be given for “discovery,” not
for technological improvements.
Thankfully, the truth of history endures.
1. THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES DISAGREES WITH THEM
He awarded the nation's highest honor in technology, the National Medal of Technology to Dr. Damadian and Dr. Lauterbur at the executive Offices of the White House in 1988 "For their independent contributions in conceiving and developing the application of magnetic resonance technology to medical uses including whole-body scanning and diagnostic imaging".
-President Reagan
2. THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL INVENTOR'S HALL OF FAME DISAGREES WITH THEM
They inducted Dr. Raymond Damadian in 1989 to join Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Samuel Morse, the Wright brothers and the other inventor legends of American history for his invention of "the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner, which has revolutionized the field of diagnostic medicine".
3. THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT (William Rehnquist, Chief Justice) AFTER 1.1 MILLION PAGES OF DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE DISAGREES WITH THEM.
About the Researchers
The First to Propose Scanning the Human Body (1969) by NMR (MRI)
Raymond V. Damadian is the medical doctor who first proposed scanning medical patients by NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance, the original name of the MRI) based on his discovery of the principle on which all modern MRI is based – the different NMR signals that tissues emit in a magnetic field. The amplitude of these signals determines the brightness of the picture elements (pixels) that the MRI image is composed of.
Figure 1.
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Figure 2. Original 1971 data in Science showing the lengthening of the decay time (relaxation time) of the NMR signal of cancer relative to normal (e.g. liver cancer 826 milliseconds (msecs) vs 293 msecs normal liver, 736 msecs Walker Scacoma vs. 538 msecs normal muscle). The data additionally shows the pronounced differences in the NMR signal decay rates of the normal tissues (e.g. 257 msecs intestine vs. 595 msecs for brain).
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Figure 3. He discovered that the NMR signal amplitudes of cancer tissue differ markedly from the NMR signal amplitudes of the normal tissues because of the differences in their rate of decay.
The above is an example of the difference in the decay rate of an NMR signal from cancer tissue relative to the decay rate of a normal tissue. The longer the signal decay the higher the signal amplitude computed from the NMR signal. The amplitude of the tissue NMR signal sets the brightness of the pixel (picture element) in the image assigned to it as exemplified in the pixels displaying the cerebellar tumor of figure 1.
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Figure 4.
“THEREFORE ANY FURTHER DISCUSSION ABOUT SCANNING THE HUMAN BODY BY NMR IS VISIONARY NONSENSE”
This was the conclusion of an NMR scientist at the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Diagnosis Conference (1976) after his successful repeat of Dr. Damadian's demonstration of the prolonged relaxations of the NMR signals of cancerous tissues and his additional observations that non-malignant diseased tissues also had prolonged NMR relaxations. He had however overlooked that both cancerous and non-cancerous diseased tissue NMR signals were markedly prolonged relative to normal making the pixels of both diseased tissue types conspicuously brighter than normal and eminently visible by MRI.
At a subsequent conference of NMR scientists where Dr. Damadian had been invited to present his NMR findings in cancer, at the conclusion of his talk one of the NMR scientists stood to ask
“NOW DOCTOR HOW FAST DO YOU PROPOSE TO SPIN THE PATIENT ?”*
* (Spinning the test tube sample at high rpm was a standard in NMR spectroscopy for overcoming the magnetic field inhomogeneities that the protons of the test tube sample were exposed to)
The Discovery (Figures 2 & 3) Has Made Tumors Visible (and Detectable)
By MRI
He discovered that the NMR signal amplitudes of cancer tissue differ markedly from the NMR signal amplitudes of the normal tissues because of the differences in their rate of decay.
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Figure 5. Brain Tumor
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Figure 6. Tumor Metastasis to Bone
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Figure 7. Liver Tumor
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These signal amplitude differences enabled cancer tissues (Figures 5-7) and other tissues to be visualized in MRI images because the signal differences generate the needed brightness differences (contrast) in the picture elements (pixels) needed to visualize detail in the MRI image.
The contrast in pixel brightness allows the cancer pixels in the image to be distinguished from the surrounding normal pixels. (Figs 5-7)
The Discovery (Figures 8 & 9) Has Made the Detailed Anatomy of the Human Body Visible in Medical Images For the First Time
He simultaneously discovered that the NMR signal amplitudes also differ markedly among the normal tissues themselves because of the differences in their rates of decay (see Figure 2).
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CT Image
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MRI Image
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| Figure 8. Note the soft tissue detail visualized in the MRI image of the brain that is not visualized by x-ray CT technology (e.g. the pronounced white matter-grey matter differentiation of the MRI, the clearly defined thalamic nuclei, and the well visualized subdural layers not visualized by CT.) |
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Figure 9a-9d. Further examples of the exceptional anatomic detail made visible by the discovery of Damadian of the pronounced differences in the decay rates (relaxations) of the NMR signals of the body's normal tissues. The discovered differences supply the pixel amplitude differences (contrast) that produce the detailed visualization of normal human anatomy MRI is noted for. Note the visualization of the vestibular and cochlear nerves within the internal auditory canel (Figure 9b) and the visualization of the hypothalamic tract (that transports hormones from the brain within the pituitary stalk. (Figure 9c)
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This allows the different normal tissues to be distinguished from each other and achieve the exceptional anatomic detail MRI pictures are known for.
Figure 10.
Building the First MRI
Damadian went on to build the first MRI scanner by hand, assisted by his two post-doctoral students, Michael Goldsmith and Larry Minkoff at New York’s Downstate Medical Center and achieved the first MRI scan of a healthy human body in 1977 and a human body with cancer in 1978.
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Figure 11. Michael Goldsmith, Raymond Damadian and Michael Stanford beginning the winding of thirty miles of Niobium Titanium wire on one of the two solenoid (circular) winding frames that would compose Indomitable's MRI magnet.
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Figure 12. One of the two liquid helium dewars under construction that would house one of Indomitable's two superconducting magnet coils and maintain the necessary -269° C temperature needed to establish superconductivity in the Niobium Titanium magnet coil.
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Figure 13. Raymond Damadian, Larry Minkoff and Michael Goldsmith with "Indomitable" and its iced liquid helium and liquid nitrogen ports: the world's first supercooled, superconducting MR scanner and the world's first MRI machine.
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Figure 14. The unsuccessful first human MRI scan of Damadian. Goldsmith concluded that Damadian was simply "too fat" for his NMR receiver coil (the multi-conductor helix around Damadian's chest).
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Figure 15. L. Minkoff in Indomitable with some "room to spare" inside the Goldsmith receiver coil.
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Figure 16. The data of the first live human MRI scan of L. Minkoff's chest consisting of 106 data points acquired over four hours and forty five minutes.
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Figure 17. The interpolated image of the Minkoff scan and the first ever MRI scan of a live human being (4:45 AM July 3, 1977).
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Figure 18. July 3, 1977 the 4:45 AM jubilation of Team Indomitable.
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VISIONARY NONSENSE
HAD BECOME REALITY AT ZERO RPM !
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On the Accomplishment of the World's First MRI Scan of the Live Human Body
7/3/1977
THE TRUTH OF HISTORY, THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS – 2
YEARS AFTER THE NOBEL PRIZE
“By
the final few decades of the twentieth century,
medical practitioners were exploiting developments
in nuclear
physics to provide a range of new ways of peering
inside the human body …. Another technique
developed during the 1970s was MRI (magnetic resonance
imaging). The technique was initially developed
by Raymond Damadian (1936 -), working at the Downstate
Medical Center in New York, making use of the fact
that different atomic nuclei emit radio waves of
predictable frequencies when exposed to a magnetic
field. Damadian noted that tumorous cells emitted
signals different from those emitted by healthy
tissue
and used this as the basis for a new technique
for identifying cancers. Damadian and his fellow
workers
produced the first MRI scan of the human body in
1977.”
(Making Modern
Science, A Historical Review, The University of Chicago
Press,
2005).
THE TRUTH OF HISTORY, SUNY HEALTH SCIENCES CENTER
(DOWNSTATE MEDICAL CENTER), BROOKLYN – 5 YEARS
AFTER THE NOBEL PRIZE
(Richard Macchia, MD, and Paul Dreizen, MD, in the
UUP Voice, the official publication of United University
Professions (UUP), State University of New York.)
In summation,
ORIGINATION OF THE NMR BODY SCANNING IDEA
Damadian both originated the idea to scan the human body by NMR (MR) and provided the means (the NMR signal differences) to achieve it. For any scientific advance to occur, someone must generate the idea to bring it about. Damadian provided the idea to give rise to the MRI.
Prior to Damadian's genesis of the NMR body scanning idea in 1969, NMR instruments for obtaining the NMR spectra of test tube samples had been in operation for 23 years. Thousands of research scientists and chemists the world over used NMR spectrometers to obtain spectra of chemical samples, but the idea to use NMR to scan the human body occurred to no one.
For example, without the idea to create an independent self-contained transportable combustion engine, there would be no automobile. Without the idea to transport vehicles by air flotation, there would be no airplanes.
Without the idea to generate light by electricity, there would be no light bulbs and without the idea to scan the human body by NMR there would be no MRI. The idea to scan the human body by NMR originated with Damadian.
Indeed, when Damadian first originated the idea it was ridiculed at a major scientific conference held at the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health in 1976. A distinguished member of the NMR profession and a professor at the Johns Hopkins University at the time presented his successful repeat of Dr. Damadian's NMR measurements of malignant tissue. He went on to report that other non-malignant diseased tissues also had elevated NMR relaxations. Overlooking that both malignant tissues and non-malignant diseased tissues had marked NMR relaxations elevations when compared to normal that would generate marked differences in pixel brightness (contrast) when displayed on an MRI image he announced
"Therefore any further discussion of scanning the human body
by NMR is visionary nonsense." (Fig.4)
At another NMR conference that Dr. Damadian was asked to present at, one of the NMR scientists at the conference stood up after his presentation and asked
"Now Doctor, how fast do you propose to spin the patient ?" (Fig.4)
U.S. Patent 3,789,832 (Fig. 9) together with shaping of the static magnetic field provided the means for the spatial localization needed for the in vivo scanning of the 106 (Fig. 15) anatomic loci (pixels – see Fig. 1) that provided the first MR image of the human body. It was demonstrated at trial that the magnetic component (the "near field" that generates the NMR signal) of the transmitted rf (radio frequency) could be shaped to any dimension desired ("focused") and moved to any location desired. The focusing of the transmitted rf would be used to systematically generate the NMR signals from spatially localized scanning loci within the body, in order to map the anatomy and detect diseased loci.
DISCOVERY OF THE NMR SIGNAL DIFFERENCES TO MAKE THE IMAGE
Having originated the NMR body scanner idea, Damadian also provided the means to bring it about. He isolated the NMR signal differences that made it possible. He demonstrated for the first time that the NMR signal from cancer tissue was markedly different from the NMR signals obtained from normal tissues. He further demonstrated in the same 1971 publication in Science (Damadian, R. Tumor Detection by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance. Science, 171:1151-1153, 1971) that the NMR signals of the normal tissues differed markedly.
Were the amplitudes of the NMR signals** used to set the brightness of each MRI image pixel (Fig. 1) the same for all tissues (and prior to Dr. Damadian's discovery such NMR tissue signal differences were not known to exist) the brightness of each image pixel would be the same. The MR image would be a blank.
The NMR signal differences discovered by Damadian vary the brightness of the pixels that make up the image (Fig. 1). The signal differences of diseased and normal tissues generate the large differences in pixel brightness that enable all diseased tissues (cancerous as well as non-cancerous) to be exquisitely visualized (fig.1, figs.5-7) by the MRI image. Additionally the exceptional NMR signal differences among the normal tissues discovered by Damadian give rise to the extraordinary detail of normal anatomy visualized by MRI (figs. 2-3)
Consequently,
EXCEPT FOR THE SIGNAL DISCOVERED BY DAMADIAN THAT MAKES THE IMAGE,
THERE WOULD BE NO MRI TODAY !
** as dictated by their relaxation times
* Ultimately the apparatus was constructed from a composite of radio frequency (rf) coils that shaped the oscillating magnetic fields to cancel the magnetic fields outside the region of interest. The "reduced to practice" apparatus was needed for its courtroom demonstration (during patent litigation) of the localized transmitted rf needed for eliciting NMR signals from discrete loci within the body.
"All
truths are easy to understand once they are
discovered; the point is to discover them."
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
October
20, 2003 (
