News broke the other day of a nurse in England who was in agony for three months following a routine surgery during which her gall-bladder was removed. Fearing an infection, she was sent for an MRI. Unfortunately, the MRI could not be completed as the magnetic field began torquing the 7-inch pair of forceps that had been left inside her abdomen during the surgery, causing excruciating pain! Click Here For The Follow-Up X-ray And The Rest Of The Story…
Archive for the ‘Ferromagnetic Detection for MRI Safety’ Category
MRI ‘Finds’ Forceps Left In Surgical Patient
Friday, February 12th, 2010Gurney Crashes MRI, Patient Injured, Hospital Fined $50K
Sunday, January 24th, 2010It is the stuff of fabled oral-histories, often dismissed as MRI urban-legend. The patient is wheeled into the MRI room on a gurney that goes flying toward the scanner. “How on Earth could these accidents happen when we know about these risks,” the skeptics question? Almost never does more than a single fragment of information surface about these sorts of accidents and, without verification, nearly all accounts can be erroneously written-off as fiction. Or, that was until enough pieces fell into place to conclusively document a recent episode… Click Here To Read More About MRI Gurney Accidents…
ThermaCare HeatWrap Dangerous In MRI?
Friday, January 8th, 2010Yesterday I was provided a copy of an anonymized MRI accident / incident report which described how an MRI patient wearing a ThermaCare HeatWrap (something of a self-warming patch for muscle aches) had the wrap pulled off of them by the magnetic attraction of the MRI.
ThermaCare HeatWrap Products Contain Iron And May Be Drawn Into MRI Scanners
Click To Read More About This Incident And How To Prevent Similar Accidents From Occurring…
2009 – The MRI Safety Year That Wasn’t
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010But 2010 holds the promise of reversing course.
Throughout 2009, we saw tantalizing glimpses of potential MRI safety improvements, which repeatedly escaped becoming real. Here are my ‘Top 3′ near-miss opportunities of 2009 to substantially reshape MR safety…
Can We Still Call Them ‘Never Events’ When Accidents Happen So Frequently In MRI?
Monday, December 7th, 2009This post attempts to draw-together two recent threads from here on the MRI Metal Detector blog. First, there was a long-running question about the FDA and their online-accessible database of medical device accidents which, for months, appeared to be malfunctioning, and recently was repaired. Second, there was my post in which I identified 5 MRI ‘Never Events’ which, if industry standard procedures are followed, should never occur.
RSNA / AAPM Identify Halo Ferromagnetic Risks
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009In the Tuesday, December 1st, issue of the RSNA Daily Bulletin, the ‘Tip of the Day’ was provided by the American Association of Physics in Medicine. The tip identifies specific risks of ferromagnetic tools and hardware associated with orthopedic devices, such as ‘halo’ vests…
ECRI Top 10 Medical Technology Hazards Includes MRI Projectiles
Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009Every year the ECRI Institute publishes their Top 10 health technology hazards, identifying the 10 most serious (and unintended) risks posed by our ever-increasing use of sophisticated medical devices to diagnose and treat patients. In November, the Institute released their 2010 watch list, which dedicated a Top 10 slot, and an entire page, to ferromagnetic projectiles in MRI.
Breaking Up Is Hard To Do…
Saturday, November 28th, 2009I’m not prepared to break out into song with ‘Hakuna Matata’ (at least, not yet), but the circular nature of things in life is unmistakable: ironically, the path that my commitment to MRI safety has taken has also produced the unintended consequence of getting me ‘uninvited’ from the ACR’s MR Safety committee.
Let’s look at the circular path it took to arrive here… Click Here For The Rest Of The Story…