Question: Have you ever experienced had a patient who couldn't undergo an MRI scan due to a metal implant (pace maker and the like) or for some other reason? And if so is this fairly common or not at all?

anon answered on 17 Mar 2015:

These days there are more people with pace maker which is MR conditional this means they can be scanned under certain MRI conditions.

People who have aneursyum clips can not be scanned at all!

I personally have had one case that a person that could not be scanned. They had a wire in their heart (pacing wire) placed when they were a baby and there was no medical notes about this since it was placed in another country , so rather than have an unknown risk the person revived a CT rather MR. Typically these wires are ok but if have no information I.e. it’s type and material – then it is not safe to scan!

Remember that ferromagnetic metal is dangerous , if an implant is made from something non ferromagtic I.e titanium stents for the heart then these are ok to scan.

So far since December ive had three implant queries and only one that could not be scanned – but I work in a children’s hospital so this figure will be different from an adult department.