Safer MRI Scans

Reported November 2007

BALTIMORE, Md. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- More than two million Americans depend on pacemakers and defibrillators to keep their hearts beating right. But the devices are not allowed in MRI machines -- until now!

Today, Heather McPherson is getting ready for her very first MRI scan.

“I’m a little nervous about getting the scan” McPherson told Ivanhoe.

Nervous because McPherson has a heart condition, and a defibrillator implanted in her chest. It’s a device similar to a pacemaker that helps keep her heart beating right.

But her life saving implant also comes with a price. Traditionally, metal devices are unsafe for patients in MRI machines. Now, cardiologists at Johns Hopkins hospital have a new way to safely perform the scans.

“We do put the device in what we consider to be kind of an MRI safe mode,” Henry Halperin, M.D., cardiologist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, told Ivanhoe.

During a scan, the devices can heat up, move, or turn off. But now, smaller devices made with fewer metal parts, make what used to be impossible, possible.

"They get less problem from electromagnetic noise that might come from an MRI scanner," Saman Nazarian, M.D., cardiac electro-physiologist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, told Ivanhoe.

Before patients enter the scanner, cardiac electro-physiologists use computers to temporarily re-program the device to pace the heart at a fixed rate. The device then ignores electro-magnetic signals from the MRI machine -- safely producing an image.

“We get a lot of referrals from patients who would need to have these tests done in order to make a diagnosis or make a plan for treatment,” Dr. Nazarian said.

Heather is hoping her scan will help setup a treatment plan of her own for a painful spinal cord condition, so she can get back to a normal life. “I am thrilled to get it done and over with,” McPherson said.

The American Association of Physicists in Medicine contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

David March, Public Affairs
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
(410) 955-1534
dmarch1@jhmi.edu

Martha Heil
American Institute of Physics
for the American Association of Physicists in
Medicine
(301) 209-3088
mheil@aip.org

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