We are excited to run our second study day for clinicians who want to provide MRI for patients with pacemakers or cardiac defibrillators. We ran the last course just two months ago for the first time which had some excellent discussion on how to provide these scans safely and run a service efficiently. We look … Continue reading MRI for device patients study day

At the time of implant, your team should tell you if you can have an MRI scan, based on your pacemaker design. Some pacemakers are easy to scan – they have been built for MRI.  If this is the case, your device is “MRI conditional”. Older pacemaker or cardiac defibrillators may not have tested in … Continue reading How do I know if my device can undergo MRI?

In hospitals, different departments can be quite isolated, even if they are in the same building. In healthcare (or any industry for that matter), this can make it hard for patients to receive care that needs different specialists, such as when providing MRI scans for pacemaker patients. Radiologists and Cardiologists have recognised this barrier and so in … Continue reading Cardiology and Radiology: working together

As doctors, we have always been worried about the risk in carrying out MRI for patients with pacemakers. This is because metal boxes in big magnets are in theory not a good combination. Half of us will benefit from an MRI in our lifetime, because they are excellent at detailing soft tissue. But patients with … Continue reading Safety in older devices

In the UK, we perform about 1000 MRI scans in patients with pacemakers (and cardiac defibrillators). It is estimated that we need to perform about 50,000 of these scans annually to meet requirements. We have a long way to go. Barts Heart Centre set up a 'one stop' service to provide MRI services for pacemaker … Continue reading Award nominations