Why the study?
Does the Lenz effect during MRI pose a safety hazard to patients with metallic heart valves?
Does the Lenz effect during MRI pose a safety hazard to patients with metallic heart valves?
The Lenz effect during MRI may generate significant forces and resistive pressures on metallic heart valves, suggesting a need for caution or exclusion of these patients even at 1.5 T.
Lenz forces may pose hazards for metallic valves at 1.5 T; leaves open need for prospective safety validation.
The Lenz effect on the motion of metal containing moving parts of artificial heart valves has not been considered to date. In this paper the basic theory is outlined and a simple model applied to estimate worst-case forces on such valves. The results indicate a potential for forces over 100 times greater than for the more widely recognized ferromagnetic interation. Resistive pressure effects comparable to cardiac pressure differences may occur for such valves in the mitral position even at fields as low as 1.5 T. The effect will increase linearly with field strength. Additional monitoring and perhaps even exclusion of such patients may be prudent, even at 1.5 T.
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Condon et al. (2000) studied this question.
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