Assessing radiofrequency safety of active implants by measuring induced radiofrequency currents using MRI.

ABSTRACT:

Purpose

During MRI in the presence of active wire-like implants, such as deep brain stimulation leads, there is a risk of thermal lesions in tissues adjacent to implant contacts due to radiofrequency currents induced in the wire. Currently, there is no established method to evaluate the radiofrequency (RF) safety of an implant in situ, due to complex interactions between the implant and the electric field inside the patient during MRI. This article presents a method to quantify the RF current in an implant using MRI acquisitions at very low SAR.

Theory and methods

To measure RF current in situ, a modified B1$$ B1 $$ -mapping sequence is proposed to image the associated perturbation of the B1+$$ {B}_1^{+} $$ field. A forward signal model links the RF current intensity to the

SUBMITTER: Hartmann C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12681316 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature