Your Donations in Action: Iman Khodarahmi, MD, PhD

While metal artifact reduction sequence (MARS) MRI meets the clinical needs to diagnose causes of pain for most hip implants, energy deposition during the scan can increase the temperature in the implants. As the temperature of periprosthetic tissue rises, there is the potential for thermal injury. As a result, MARS MRI is currently performed in an off-label fashion without a solid supporting medical evidence.

In his 2017 Ralph Schlaeger Charitable Foundation Research Fellow Grant, “Evaluation of Hip Arthroplasty Implant Heating During Metal Artifact Reduction Sequence Magnetic Resonance Imaging,” Iman Khodarahmi, MD, PhD, studied the temperature increase associated with different types of hip arthroplasty implants and pulse sequences during MARS MRI at 1.5 and 3T and provided strategies to minimize such effects and risks.

“Our results indicated that MARS MRI at 1.5T may result in supra-physiological heating of hip arthroplasty implants and surrounding tissues; however, properly adjusted and optimized scan protocols minimize heating effects to within the physiological range,” Dr. Khodarahmi said. “In contrast, MARS MRI at 3T showed only small temperature rises within the physiological range suggesting only minimal risk and a more robust safety profile than 1.5T.”