Kenneth- it was the Gorilla Game, plain and simple.
Were there other companies in the olden days? Sure there were. Anyone old enough to remember Technicare? They were part of JNJ. I think JNJ sold the rights and service contracts to Picker Intl., but I could be wrong. Technicare was in first, and in a big way, but they got eaten alive.
There was Diasonics, which made other imaging devices, and some nice stuff. They had a beautiful hand made oak patient table made in the traditional method- no nails or screws to mess up the magnetic field. They were also working on the low field permanent magnet that looked like a greek temple. Toshiba bought them out, and bought their way in to the US market.
Then there was Resonex, that made several systems based on resistive iron core magnets- What ever happened to them? Dead. resonex.com gives information on the organization that services their old scanners.
Um, Bruker made some good research NMR imaging systems, but I see they are back to their high field spectroscopy roots.
Then there was this company Instrumentarium, out of Finland, who made the ultra- low 0.06T system based on a resistive solenoid magnet. I don't think they sold even one in the US. I think they are a big company now in to anesthesia, critical care, and x-ray, as well as perhaps contract manufacture. Quality company, I think- just dropped their little MRI.
Lunar (http://www.lunarcorp.com) is selling a little tiny MRI to image knees, made by an Italian group I forget the name of. As you can see from the picture, you need a basketball player or someone who is VERY limber to get a scan of the knee... lunarcorp.com Recall that the knee has to be in the center of the magnet, and patients have a crotch! Ouch! I bet Lunar hasn't sold more than 5 of these things, "research" deals included.
Who took all the marbles? GE- the Gorilla. Siemens is no slouch. Toshiba, Picker, Philips and Elscint round out the the lot. Fonar sold a few units in the olden days- some were "Fonars" (their weird imager thingy) but a few were conventional 2dft spin-warp imagers based on their huge magnets. Fonar has been unique; no one in the industry could ever figure out what they made, except it had a big honkin' permanent magnet, and everything was called by a different name.
As for PPM, it makes sense if you are not selling to a radiology department; you can work some lease buy-back deals to make the purchasing price easier to afford.
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