MOVABLE PATIENT SUPPORT WITH SPATIAL LOCATING FEATURE

摘要

A magnetic resonance imaging system having a patient support (120) arranged for pivoting movement about a pivot axis and linear or sliding motion along a support axis (119) transverse to the pivot axis is provided with a device (140, 202, 340, 307) for measuring the location of a patient feature to be imaged. The measured location is used to define coordinates for positioning the patient support. These coordinates desirably are used to automatically move the patient support from a loading position to an imaging position where the feature will be properly aligned with the field axis (60) of the imaging magnet (10). The system simplifies patient positioning.