STOCKHOLM, Sweden - American Paul C. Lauterbur and Briton Sir Peter Mansfield won the 2003 Nobel Prize for medicine yesterday for discoveries leading to the development of MRI, now relied on by doctors for getting a detailed look into their patients' bodies.
Magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, has become a routine method for medical diagnosis and treatment. It is used to examine almost all organs without need for surgery, but is especially valuable for detailed examination of the brain and spinal cord.
MRI can reveal whether lower back pain is due to pressure on a nerve or spinal cord, for example. It can give surgeons a roadmap for operations, revealing the limits of a tumor. And because MRI itself does not require physically entering the body, it can replace some procedures that patients find uncomfortable.
Worldwide, more than 60 million investigations with MRI are performed each year, and the technique is a breakthrough in medical diagnostics and research
the Assembly said.
Yesterday's prize honors pioneering work done in the 1970s that laid the groundwork for making MRI a useful method, the assembly said. 17
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