Functional MRI and MR Spectroscopy Utilization in Jeddah Hospitals

Functional magnetic resonance imaging “fMRI” and magnetic resonance spectroscopy “MRS” are two crucial milestones that were introduced apart from one another into brain imaging and their implementation in major local cities is eventual step. Thus, the purpose of this study was to compare those techniques in terms of their clinical utilization in patient care delivery among the major governmental and private hospitals within Jeddah city. The study initially included eighteen hospitals to identify whether they were utilizing fMRI and MRS in their clinical practice. Out of the 18 hospitals under study only one hospital (5.6%) had both fMRI and MRS software; 7 (38.9%) had MRS but not fMRI; 4 (22.2%) did not have fMRI or MRS; and 6 (33.3%) hospitals had no MRI machine at all. Out of the eight hospitals applying MRS with one being excluded, the starting date of application was 2002 in 4 (57.1%) hospitals, 2004 in 1 (14.3%) hospital, and 2006 in 2 (28.6%) hospitals. The frequency of doing MRS was once a week in 2 (28.6%) hospitals, 2-3 cases/week in 3 (42.9%) hospitals, 5-10 cases/week in 1 (14.3%) hospital, and once every 6 months in 1 (14.3%) hospital. On the other hand, fMRI was applied only by one hospital starting in 2000 and was soon dismissed due to its time consumption and the inability of patients to accurately follow given instructions. It was concluded that MRS was more widely utilized compared to fMRI. Later on, a follow-up survey in the year of 2014 demonstrated that MRS has started to become a standard service in most hospitals whereas fMRI was still being unrecognized.