Metrology for MRI Safety

¹ Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), Braunschweig and Berlin, Germany
² Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica, Torino, Italy
³ Division of Imaging Sciences and Biomedical Engineering, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom
⁴ VSL, Delft, The Netherlands

^a Corresponding author: bernd.ittermann@ptb.de

Abstract

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) has become an indispensable medical imaging modality with about 30 million patient exams in the EU every year and an excellent history of safe use. Nevertheless, it is continuously evolving and recent technological developments such as ultrahigh magnetic fields, parallel transmission, or MRI guided radiotherapy promise to significantly enhance the quality and the range of applicability of MRI. A major reason why these technological developments are not yet used in the clinical practice are unresolved safety issues. If the patient risk cannot be quantified reliably, a ‘safety first’ attitude naturally prevails preventing the routine use of new technologies or the scanning of subjects at high risk, e.g. carriers of metallic medical implants. The EMRP joint research project HLT 06 “Metrology for MRI Safety” aimed at providing such risk assessments for certain new developments or applications in MRI. The project was concluded in 2015 and some key results will be presented here.