What Does a Wide Bore MRI Look Like?

A wide bore MRI machine looks much like a conventional MRI scanner at first glance: a large, smooth, often white or cream-colored housing surrounding a central tunnel, with a flat patient table extending from its opening. The key visual difference is the opening itself. Where a standard MRI tunnel measures about 60 centimeters (roughly 23.5 inches) across, a wide bore system opens to 70 centimeters (about 27.5 inches) or more. That extra space may not sound dramatic on paper, but standing in front of one, the opening looks noticeably more inviting, and the tunnel itself is usually shorter from end to end. The combination of a wider and shorter bore changes the feel of the machine considerably, both from the outside and, more importantly, from the inside.

The Outside View

From across the room, a wide bore MRI scanner shares the general silhouette of any modern MRI system. The magnet housing is a large, rounded rectangular or cylindrical shell, typically finished in neutral tones with clean lines designed to look as unthreatening as possible. Manufacturers have leaned into softer industrial design in recent years, with tapered edges and subtle lighting around the bore opening. Some units have ambient LED lighting built into the bore entrance that can change color, intended to calm patients before they slide inside.

The patient table, or couch, protrudes from the front of the machine. It is padded, flat, and usually adjustable in height to make it easier for patients to climb on and off. On wide bore systems, the table itself tends to be slightly broader and rated for significantly more weight than older designs. Where older MRI tables maxed out around 350 pounds, the wide bore systems from major manufacturers handle 500 to 550 pounds, depending on the model.¹ That heavier-duty table is not always obvious visually, but you might notice it looks more robust and wider than the narrow sled-like tables on older scanners.

What the Bore Itself Looks Like

The bore is the tunnel you actually lie inside during a scan. On a wide bore MRI, this opening is 70 centimeters in diameter, a measurement confirmed across multiple clinical studies and system descriptions.² To put that in perspective, 70 centimeters is a little over two feet across. The interior walls of the bore are smooth, usually a light color, and slightly curved. Many newer systems have built-in ventilation fans that push a gentle breeze through the tunnel to reduce the feeling of being enclosed.

Equally important is the length. Standard MRI bores can stretch 160 centimeters (about 5 feet 3 inches) or longer. Wide bore systems have generally been engineered with shorter magnets, so the tunnel might be closer to 125 to 145 centimeters. This matters because if you are having a knee or hip scan, your head may not even be inside the tunnel at all. Even for a brain scan, the shorter bore means your body extends out the other end sooner, giving you a view of the room behind you if you tilt your eyes downward.

Some facilities also place a small mirror or prism on the head coil (the cage-like frame placed over your face for brain or neck scans) so you can see out of the bore toward the control room. On a wide bore machine, this view feels less like peering through a narrow pipe and more like looking through a short, spacious tube with light at both ends.

How It Compares to a Standard Bore

The visual difference between a 60-centimeter and a 70-centimeter bore is more significant than the numbers suggest. In a standard bore, a person of average build has only a few inches of clearance on either side of their shoulders and above their face. In a wide bore, that clearance roughly doubles. Your elbows no longer touch the walls. You can cross your arms over your chest if you want, or let them rest at your sides without feeling squeezed. For someone of larger build, this is the difference between fitting and not fitting at all.

There is also a less common design called an open MRI, which is an entirely different machine. Open MRI systems do not have a tunnel; instead, they use two large flat magnets above and below the patient, leaving the sides open. These look dramatically different from any bore-type scanner. However, open MRIs typically operate at lower magnetic field strengths, which can mean lower image quality for certain scans. Wide bore systems, by contrast, maintain the tunnel design but make it roomier while preserving the high field strengths (1.5 Tesla or 3 Tesla) needed for detailed imaging.³ So when you look at a wide bore MRI, it is still recognizably a tunnel scanner. It just looks and feels less confining.

The Experience for Claustrophobic Patients

A major reason wide bore MRI exists is anxiety. Somewhere between 1 and 15 percent of patients experience enough claustrophobia to interfere with their scan, and the confined space of a standard MRI tunnel is one of the most commonly cited triggers. The wider, shorter bore was designed specifically to reduce that problem, and the research suggests it works well for most people.

In a study of 56 patients who had previously failed or been unable to tolerate a standard MRI due to claustrophobia, 89 percent successfully completed a diagnostic scan on a 70-centimeter wide bore system without sedation. The failures were concentrated among patients who needed head scans, where the head coil adds an extra layer of enclosure right around the face.⁴ For scans of the spine, abdomen, or extremities, the success rate was even higher, because the patient’s head often sits outside the bore entirely.

From a patient’s perspective, walking into the room and seeing that wider opening can set a different psychological tone before the scan even begins. The interior lighting, the visible length of the tunnel, and the extra breathing room all contribute to a sense that the machine is less threatening. Some patients who have been through both types describe the wide bore as feeling more like lying in a large pipe than being slid into a coffin, which is a grim but common comparison for standard bore systems.

What You Hear Inside

Appearance aside, one of the biggest surprises for first-time MRI patients is the noise. MRI scanners produce loud knocking, buzzing, and thumping sounds as their gradient coils rapidly switch on and off during imaging. Traditional sequences can reach well above 100 decibels inside the bore, which is comparable to standing near a jackhammer. This is true of wide bore scanners too; the wider opening does not inherently make the machine quieter.

What has changed the noise picture is newer pulse sequence technology, which some wide bore systems now offer. One approach, tested on a wide bore GE system, reduced measured noise from about 105 decibels down to roughly 69 decibels, effectively bringing the sound inside the bore to the same level as the ambient room noise.⁵ That is a dramatic reduction, roughly equivalent to going from a rock concert to a normal conversation. These quieter sequences are not available for every type of scan yet, but they represent a meaningful improvement in the sensory experience of being inside the machine. Whether you end up on a quiet or a loud scan protocol, you will still be given earplugs or headphones.

Scanning Larger Patients

Wide bore MRI has been particularly valuable for patients whose body size made standard MRI impractical or impossible. A standard 60-centimeter bore simply cannot accommodate many patients with a BMI above 35 or 40, depending on body shape. In one study focused on morbidly obese patients, researchers used a wide bore system to scan individuals with BMIs ranging from about 35 to 59, successfully obtaining diagnostic-quality images of their abdominal fat distribution.⁶ Before wide bore systems were available, these patients would have been turned away from MRI entirely or sent to open MRI units with lower image quality.

The combination of the wider bore and the higher weight limits on the patient table means these systems can handle a much broader range of body types. That matters not just for comfort but for diagnostic access. A patient who cannot physically fit into a scanner cannot get the imaging their doctor ordered, which can delay diagnosis or force reliance on alternative imaging methods that may be less informative for certain conditions.

What Children See Inside the Bore

For children, the visual experience inside the bore can be transformed even further. Some facilities now use in-bore projection or display systems that show animated content on the ceiling of the tunnel while the child lies inside. A recent design study tested a system built specifically for pediatric patients that projected an animated character (an elephant named Ollie) onto a screen visible from inside the bore. Children aged 5 to 10 responded positively to the character and the visual guidance, and all but one managed to lie still during a simulated exam. Six out of ten were also able to hold their breath on command, which is critical for certain abdominal or cardiac sequences.⁷

These in-bore entertainment systems are not exclusive to wide bore machines, but the extra space inside a 70-centimeter tunnel makes it easier to install screens or projectors and gives children a slightly less hemmed-in feeling. For younger children, the visual environment of the bore often matters more than the dimensions themselves; a tunnel decorated with colorful lights and showing a cartoon feels fundamentally different from a blank white tube, regardless of its diameter.

Procedures Done Inside Wide Bore Machines

Wide bore MRI is not only about diagnostic imaging. The extra space inside the tunnel has made it practical for doctors to perform interventional procedures under real-time MRI guidance. In a standard bore, there is barely enough room for the patient, let alone for a physician to reach in with instruments. A 70-centimeter bore provides enough working space for procedures like tissue biopsies and tumor ablation.

Over a one-year period, researchers performed 50 biopsies of upper abdominal tumors in a wide bore 3-Tesla MRI system and reported high technical success and easy handling thanks to the extra room.² Separately, a 1.5-Tesla wide bore system was used for guiding radiofrequency ablation of kidney tumors, a procedure that involves inserting a probe into the tumor and heating it to destroy cancer cells.³ In both cases, the ability to see the tumor and the instruments in real time, while having physical space to maneuver, made MRI-guided intervention feasible in a way that would be awkward or impossible in a narrower bore.

For the patient undergoing one of these procedures, the bore looks the same as it would for a regular scan, but there may be additional equipment visible at the opening and the physician may periodically reach into the bore to adjust instruments. The patient remains on the table throughout, and the wider bore means the physician’s arms and tools have clearance to work without bumping into the tunnel walls.

How to Tell If a Facility Has One

If you are trying to find out whether a specific imaging center has a wide bore MRI, the information is not always prominently advertised. Some facilities list it on their website under equipment specifications or patient comfort features. Others mention it only if you call and ask. The phrases to look for are “wide bore,” “70 cm bore,” or “large bore MRI.” If a center advertises an “open MRI,” that is a different machine entirely, with an open-sided design rather than a wider tunnel.

It is worth asking about the specific model and field strength if the distinction matters for your scan. A wide bore 3-Tesla system will produce the highest-quality images for most purposes, while a wide bore 1.5-Tesla system is still excellent for the vast majority of clinical exams and may be slightly quieter. Both offer the same physical bore size. If you have severe claustrophobia, a wide bore system may be enough to let you complete the scan without sedation, but you should mention your anxiety when scheduling so the facility can plan accordingly and potentially offer additional comfort measures like music, a blindfold, or a mild anti-anxiety medication as a backup.

What Wide Bore MRI Does Not Change

Despite the roomier feel, a wide bore MRI is still a confined space. You still lie flat on your back on a narrow-ish table. You still slide into a tube. The machine still makes noise, sometimes a lot of it. You still need to hold very still, sometimes for 20 to 45 minutes depending on the exam. If you have metal implants, the same safety screening applies. The magnetic field is just as strong, and the same objects are just as dangerous to bring into the room.

The image quality on a wide bore system is comparable to a standard bore system at the same field strength. Early concerns that widening the bore might degrade the magnetic field uniformity and hurt image quality have largely been addressed through engineering improvements. For routine clinical scans, you are not sacrificing diagnostic accuracy by choosing a wide bore machine. The trade-off, if any, is that wide bore systems tend to be more expensive, so not every facility has one, and wait times for appointments may be longer at centers that do.

Patients sometimes wonder whether a wide bore MRI will take longer than a standard scan. In general, it does not. The scan sequences are the same, the imaging times are comparable, and the overall appointment length is driven by what body part is being imaged and how many sequences your radiologist orders, not by the size of the bore. The only timing difference might be a shorter setup if the wider bore makes positioning easier, particularly for larger patients who would otherwise need multiple attempts to get comfortable in a standard machine.