FONAR NEWS-113011

FONAR Sells UPRIGHT Multi-Position MRI Scanner to The 29th State That Has Purchased Dynamic Weight-Bearing Multi-Position MRI Technology For Its Citizens

MELVILLE, NEW YORK, November 30, 2011 - FONAR Corporation (NASDAQ-FONR), The Inventor of MR Scanning™, reported the sale today of its UPRIGHT® Multi-Position™ MRI to a radiology practice in western USA. The purchaser, a board certified radiologist in a highly competitive medical marketplace, requested that the final location of the installation not be reported before installation.

The purchase raises the number of states to 29 whose citizens now have the benefit of being able to be scanned in the position most likely to permit visualization of the cause of their symptoms, i.e. fully weight-bearing and in the multiple positions that generate their symptoms, so that they can be correctly treated. The FONAR UPRIGHT® Multi-Position™ MRI has also been sold to Puerto Rico and has been installed in eleven other nations around the world.

The board certified radiologist purchasing the FONAR UPRIGHT® Multi-Position™ MRI for his practice said he was doing so in order to meet the expressed needs of his sending physicians, principally neurosurgeons and orthopedic surgeons. They are eager, he said, to achieve the best possible surgical outcomes for their spine surgery patients. They consider imaging the spine fully loaded with its normal weight, and in all the upright positions that the spine normally occupies, fundamental to a good surgical outcome for the patient. So doing would assure that the correct symptom-generating spine level was identified and operated on and that any additional spine pathologies contributing to the patient’s symptomatology (e.g. adjacent level disease, position dependent vertebral instabilities, position dependent compression of the neural canal, etc….) were not overlooked. Failure to see the full picture could result in the administration of a wrong or insufficient surgical procedure.

The customer reported that FONAR’s latest CSP (correlated slice protocol) technology was particularly unique in this regard. It enables the reading radiologist to view a side by side comparison of each slice of the scan in all of the positions the slice occupies (including recumbent). CSP technology, he said, enables the radiologist to precisely report to the surgeon which image slices were the most problematic for the patient, throughout the patient's full range of motion. The surgeon could then view them, he said, and choose the best surgical procedure for fully restoring a pain free normal range of motion to the patient’s spine.

Additionally, the most recent discovery of FONAR’s UPRIGHT® technology and its power to visualize and identify the dynamic obstructions of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) flow that can be playing a role in the genesis of multiple sclerosis, means the new possibility of being able to identify and visualize, for the first time, a possible biomechanical cause for this crippling disease (Physiological Chemistry and Physics and Medical NMR, Sept. 20, 2011, 41: 1-17). Visualization of a causative CSF flow obstruction and a careful image analysis of it could lead to treatments or surgical remedies that might be able to overcome the patient’s MS pathology. The FONAR UPRIGHT® Multi-Position™ MRI technology is particularly potent in this context. It enables upright multi-position imaging of the fully weight-loaded cervical spine and multi-position visualization ("movies") of the cerebrospinal fluid surrounding the spinal cord. FONAR's brand new high technology for producing cinematography ("movies") of the spinal fluid as it moves in and out of the upright spinal canal in all of its normal upright body positions (as well as recumbent) and into the brain, is profound, as well as critical. The consequences of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) flow obstruction and vertebral instability can be neurologically dire.

The purchaser added that besides the serious medical benefits of the FONAR UPRIGHT® Multi-Position™ MRI already mentioned, the UPRIGHT® MRI possesses the additional benefit of being uniquely patient-friendly, allowing the patient to be scanned while sitting and watching television, thereby addressing the imaging needs of claustrophobic patients. Patient claustrophobia is a wide-spread impediment in MRI scanning, according to a recent peer reviewed article in Plos One by J. Enders, et al., Aug. 23, 2011 (http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0023494). It concluded ‘In this first randomized controlled trial on claustrophobia in MRI both short-bore and open scanners showed disappointing event rates of more than 25%, irrespective of patient characteristics and the anatomical region being examined.’

Raymond Damadian, MD, president and founder of FONAR said, “There are other advantages as well. Many patients are unable to lie down on a flat surface for a variety of medical reasons, and a recumbent-only MRI is out of the question. These are patients that have spinal deformities, vertigo or COPD. Considering the powerful image quality that the scanner has, this is indeed a remarkable scanner.”

FONAR (NASDAQ:FONR), Melville, NY, The Inventor of MR Scanning™, was incorporated in 1978, and is the first, oldest and most experienced MRI company in the industry. FONAR introduced the world’s first commercial MRI in 1980, and went public in 1981. Since its inception, nearly 300 recumbent-OPEN MRIs and 150 UPRIGHT® Multi-Position™ MRI scanners have been installed worldwide. FONAR’s stellar product is the UPRIGHT® MRI (also known as the Stand-Up® MRI), the only whole-body MRI that performs Position™ imaging (pMRI™) and scans patients in numerous weight-bearing positions, i.e. standing, sitting, in flexion and extension, as well as the conventional lie-down position. The FONAR UPRIGHT® MRI often sees the patient’s problem that other scanners cannot because they are lie-down only. The patient-friendly UPRIGHT® MRI has a near-zero claustrophobic rejection rate by patients. As a FONAR customer states, “If the patient is claustrophobic in this scanner, they’ll be claustrophobic in my parking lot.” Approximately 85% of patients are scanned sitting while they watch a 42” flat screen TV. FONAR is headquartered on Long Island, New York.

UPRIGHT® and STAND-UP® are registered trademarks and The Inventor of MR Scanning™, Full Range of Motion™, Multi-Position™, Upright Radiology™, The Proof is in the Picture™, True Flow™, pMRI™, Spondylography™, Dynamic™, Spondylometry™, CSP™, and Landscape™, are trademarks of FONAR Corporation.

This release may include forward-looking statements from the company that may or may not materialize. Additional information on factors that could potentially affect the company's financial results may be found in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.