FONAR Corporation announced that it has sold an UPRIGHT Multi-Position MRI to a medical center in Libya, the Tripoli Medical Center. With this sale, FONAR marks the entrance of the UPRIGHT imaging technology into the markets of Africa and the Middle East. The purchase of the FONAR UPRIGHT was funded by the Libyan government. The general director of the Tripoli Medical Center, Professor Omran Al-Shamam, M.D., stated, “It is with great pride that we bring this leading-edge technology to the people of Libya. The many unique benefits of the FONAR UPRIGHT Multi-Position MRI make it a necessity for us, not an option – particularly its ability to image the spine in the full range of normal dynamic positions, including flexion and extension, and with the normal weight of the body on the spine. This unrivaled technology will allow us to identify much more accurately the pathology that is causing our patients’ symptoms. Our surgeons are truly enthusiastic about the potential of the FONAR UPRIGHT MRI to result in improved surgical planning and surgical outcomes. In addition, it eliminates the claustrophobic effect that troubles many patients.” Dr. Al-Shamam continued, “We’re also looking forward to the enormous benefits of the FONAR UPRIGHT MRI in visualizing the soft tissue of the pelvic floor in the Upright patient, which can be the only position in which the pathology is evident. We also appreciate the advantages of the UPRIGHT in pediatrics, because of its ability to image children while they sit on their mothers’ laps, so anesthesia, which is often required in recumbent-only MRIs, can be eliminated to a significant degree in the FONAR UPRIGHT. Finally, its ability to image the young scoliosis patient without radiation and avoid the increased risk of breast cancer due to overexposure to X-ray, as reported by the US National Cancer Institute, is a major benefit for our people. For all these reasons we consider the FONAR UPRIGHT MRI, as others have said, to be mandatory and not optional.” Dr. Raymond Damadian, founder and president of FONAR, commented, “I commend Dr. Al-Shamam and the Tripoli Medical Center for their commitment to bringing this advanced technology to the benefit of their patients. FONAR is pleased that its new technology is giving birth to a new radiologic discipline, which we call UPRIGHT Radiology. While X-ray devices such as the chest X-ray have long been able to provide pictures of the erect human body, chest X-rays are lacking in their ability to generate slices. (Conventional CT scanners, for example, are recumbent-only devices.) In the absence of slice anatomy, technologies without them such as the conventional chest X-ray are no longer state-of-the-art in their ability to achieve high-resolution imaging of the body’s organ systems.” Dr. Damadian continued, “MR scanning itself added a critical new dimension to medical imaging. It made possible for the first time the ability to achieve detailed images of the body's critical and vital soft tissues. Nonetheless, it still fell short of its ultimate potential, namely the ability to provide detailed images of the human body and all of its tissues in the body's normal UPRIGHT positions of function. “UPRIGHT Radiology, brought to life by FONAR technology, can now provide images of all the body’s soft, as well as, structural organ systems in the complete range of UPRIGHT positions in which they function. I am sure Dr. Al-Shamam and the surgeons at the Tripoli Medical Center will find that the FONAR UPRIGHT MRI will vastly enhance their ability to provide the latest in state-of-the art healthcare for their patients.”