MRI ‘may be safe for patients with implantable heart devices’

New research has indicated that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) may be safe for people with implantable heart devices.

A team from the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in Salt Lake City formed this conclusion after assessing data from 212 MRI studies in 178 patients with a cardiac implantable electronic device between February 2014 and August 2016.

Ultimately, it was found that no problems requiring remediation occurred during the entire series of studies, which involved a total of 418 implanted leads, with no generators or leads needing anything more than a minor adjustment.

Dr Jeffrey Anderson, senior study author and cardiologist at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute, said: "That's a pretty big number of leads exposed to these very strong MRI fields. You would think if there was even a one percent chance of having a problem, it would have shown up."

Generally, MRIs are considered risky for those with pacemakers and defibrillator devices due to concerns that generator circuits could be disrupted, that metal leads could be pulled out of place by the magnetism, or that lead tips could become hot and scar surrounding tissues.

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