MRI and implanted medical devices: Basic interactions with an emphasis on heating

There are three principal magnetic fields in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that may interact with medical implants. The static field will induce force and torque on ferromagnetic objects. The pulsed gradients are of audio frequency and the implant may concentrate the induced currents, with a potential for nerve stimulation or electrical inference. The currents induced in the body by the radio frequency (RF) field may also be concentrated by an implant, resulting in potentially dangerous heating of surrounding tissues. This paper presents basic information about MRI interactions with implants with an emphasis on RF-induced heating of leads used for deep brain stimulation (DBS). The temperature rise at the electrodes was measured in vitro as a function of the overall length of a DBS lead at an RF frequency of 64 MHz. The maximal temperature rise occurred for an overall length of 41 cm. The method of moments was used to calculate the current induced in the lead. From the induced currents, the RF power deposition near the electrodes was calculated and the heat equation was used to model the temperature rise. The calculated temperature rises as a function of lead length were in good agreement with the measured values.