Coil Safe Positioning in MRI
- 2. Coil Positioning is important for Image Quality Patient Safety Patient Comfort
- 4. Image Quality The patient needs to be positioned properly in or on a coil for optimal imaging The coil selected should be the right size for the body part being imaged (ex. liver flex-body NOT Q-body) The part of the body being imaged needs to be in the center of the coil, and in turn the coil needs to be as close to isocenter as possible.
- 5. Image Quality This Survey image is in good position. It has good signal coverage, the next slide shows the image received from this survey
- 6. Image Quality Good coil position has given this image nice even signal over the area of interest
- 7. Image Quality This Survey is not in a good position. The signal coverage area is too high. The following is what you get.
- 8. Image Quality An Artifact caused by not enough signal, poor uneven fat- saturation. In order to see the top of the tibia the window level had to be increased dramatically, causing the fluid to be to bright and the articular cartilage unseen.
- 9. Image Quality This is a survey Image using a flex- body coil. There is an artifact on the survey images.
- 10. Image Quality The resultant Image
- 11. Image Quality The coil was repositioned and......
- 12. Image Quality Artifact is gone! Revealing some pathology in the area of the artifact.
- 13. Image Quality Conclusion An extra minute or two to center the patient properly,can make a big difference. A lot of coils have a line to show you the center or ends of its active area, have a look at yours. When you look at your survey, remember to look at YOUR SIGNAL COVERAGE as well as the anatomy. This will help tell you how good your coil positioning is.
- 14. Image Quality Conclusion On sequences with lots of signal some T1's you might “get away” with poorer coil position but on Fat- Sat's or low NSA sequences you wont. If the anatomy your aiming for is not in the center, take a minute and reposition it might save you ten minutes later on
- 15. Coils and Patient Burns There are two types of burns RF Burns Cable Heating Burns
- 16. Coils and Patient Burns Cable Heating burns What can we do to prevent them? NO LOOPS (loops cause conduction causing heat causing burns) Don't let a cable touch a patients skin/QBC directly Keep cables aligned with the magnet Make sure any gating leads are properly attached, no air in between and MR compatible Check your cables for frayed parts
- 17. Coils and Patient Burns Types of Loops! Cable Loops Loops between cables and QBC Loops between cables and patients Loops within patient
- 18. Unsafe Coil Un-Safe Cables go across the main magnet field by the q-body coil creating a RF antenna
- 19. Safe Coil Safe The cables are not touching the skin (2cm) The cables are straight and going under pads
- 20. Safe Coil Cables go under pads
- 21. EKG Burn
- 22. Pulse Oximeter Burn 3rd Degree
- 23. Coils and Patient Burns RF Burns What can we do to prevent? Keep SAR to a minimum Put a pause in,some machines reconstruct and scan at the same time giving continual RF exposure. Keep in contact with your patient, make sure they alert you if they start to feel warm any where
- 24. Shoulder Burn
- 25. Tattoo Burn
- 26. Burn--
- 27. RF-or Loop burn? This patient was having his thighs scanned due to there different sizes. Apparently his legs were only touching for one scan. After the exam, he complained of an itching, he stayed at the facility and 3 hours later...
- 28. RF-or Loop burn? These 3rd degree burns came to the surface? What do you think?
- 29. Remember Burns can happen Screen your patient well Keep in contact with them during the exam Keep your SAR to a minimum Check your equipment Check your coil/cable positioning