Design And Evaluation Of Head And Neck Low SAR MRI Protocols For Patients With Implanted Electronic Devices

Patients with MRI conditional implantable electronic devices (IEDs) will be referred for MRI examinations. Imaging these patients, however, remains a challenge, in part, because there is no framework to follow for designing protocols that meet SAR labeling requirements. The purpose of this work was to generate and test a workflow that can be followed for optimizing protocols to meet a SAR labeling target. Following the workflow, we optimized head and neck protocols to meet whole-body SAR ≤0.1W/kg and head SAR≤0.3W/kg. Each low SAR MRI series was within the conditional SAR labeling while maintaining image quality.