Jeffrey L. Helfer

Can pacemakers, neurostimulators, leads, or guide wires be MRI safe? Technological concerns and possible resolutions.

The substantial benefits of magnetic resonance imaging are often denied to patients known to have implanted medical devices such as pacemakers and neurostimulators. Other patients are put at potential risk when they undergo an MRI procedure, even though specific informed consent is required regarding the possible MRI interactions with the implanted device. The medical community is currently divided over the actual extent of the MRI safety problem. In this report, insight is provided into the wide array of results achieved by many researchers; also, several options for producing medical devices that are inherently safe under worst‐case MRI conditions are presented. As the problem is very complex and the variety of implants is large, this paper focuses on the problems of MRI‐induced lead heating.