{"id":18013,"date":"2026-06-29T14:49:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T13:49:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hallmarq.net\/2026\/06\/29\/standing-mri-why-now-is-the-time-to-review-your-case-selection\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T15:04:43","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T14:04:43","slug":"standing-mri-why-now-is-the-time-to-review-your-case-selection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hallmarq.net\/us\/2026\/06\/29\/standing-mri-why-now-is-the-time-to-review-your-case-selection\/","title":{"rendered":"Standing MRI: Why Now is the Time to Review Your Case Selection"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Standing MRI (sMRI) has long been the gold standard for imaging the equine foot in the standing horse. That label is well earned and it’s not going away. But there’s a question worth asking in 2026: is it time to review my standing MRI case selection? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If sMRI is (and always has been) the gold standard for the foot, then what lies ahead for the rest of the limb?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer, with two significant advances now live on Hallmarq’s standing MRI systems, is: considerably more than it used to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This piece is for the vets who already use standing MRI and the colleagues who refer to them. It’s about what iNAV and AI-enhanced imaging (pAIce) have changed – not in theory, but in practice – and why now is the moment to review the cases you might previously have approached differently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Foot Was the Beginning Not the Limit!<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When standing equine MRI<\/a> was first introduced, scanning above the coronary band was a genuine challenge. The further up the limb, the more movement there was and movement is the enemy of diagnostic image quality. For years, the foot remained the primary focus of sMRI not because MRI wasn’t valuable higher up, but because consistent diagnostic outcomes were harder to guarantee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That limitation shaped referral habits. Vets learned, reasonably, to reach for sMRI when localization pointed to the foot and to consider other options when it didn’t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The technology has moved on significantly. The referral criteria probably haven’t kept pace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What iNAV Changed<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

iNAV is Hallmarq’s advanced motion correction software. Built specifically for veterinary applications, it tracks the position of the horse’s limb three times per second during image acquisition. iNAV is a step change in sampling frequency compared to what came before – and corrects for motion as the image is processed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result is immediately visible in the scans. Where proximal limb images once carried the telltale blur of patient sway, iNAV-corrects images to reduce patient artefact. It shows the kind of clarity that was previously associated only with foot scans: the proximal suspensory, the carpus, the tarsus, the fetlock: all areas where iNAV makes a material difference to diagnostic confidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Dr Natasha Werpy, DVM, DACVR, puts it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The introduction of iNAV has dramatically advanced magnetic resonance imaging of the standing horse and strengthened our confidence in diagnosing clinically significant injuries in<\/em> the proximal limb.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

For existing Hallmarq customers, iNAV is already on your system. It\u2019s integrated into scanning protocols to solve the problem of motion impact on image quality. And, as with all Hallmarq software upgrades, this comes at no additional cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What AI brings Next: pAIce<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If iNAV addresses the motion problem, then AI-enhanced imaging (using Hallmarq’s pAIce technology) addresses the time problem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using advanced AI denoising algorithms, pAIce removes noise from MRI images while keeping resolution and contrast fully intact. The result is scan time reductions of between 50-75%. That’s not a marginal efficiency gain. Such a significant reduction in scan times changes the clinical calculation in meaningful ways:<\/p>\n\n\n\n