IT IS one of the safest ways for doctors to peer inside the human body, and invaluable for discovering what is wrong with patients. Yet the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners could become restricted in Europe as part of a well-meaning but misguided attempt to improve the welfare of hospital workers.
So say MRI鈥檚 inventors, who asked the European Commission on Tuesday to change its Physical Agents Directive, which is intended to limit the doses of electromagnetic radiation doctors and nurses can be exposed to.
The problem is that the safety limits have been set far too low, say 12 leading pioneers of MRI, including its Nobel prizewinning inventor Peter Mansfield of the University of Nottingham, UK.
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For example, the legislation sets one exposure limit for electromagnetic radiation capable of producing electrical currents in the body that is 100 times lower than that known to cause even slightly painful nerve twitches. That would prevent doctors and healthcare workers from getting close enough to MRI machines to talk to patients during a scan. 鈥淓ven that would become illegal,鈥� says Steve Keevil, a clinical scientist at King鈥檚 College London who is developing new MRI-based procedures to monitor heart function in children, say.
鈥淚t could have a totally counter-productive effect in terms of patient and staff safety,鈥� Keevil adds, pointing out that unless the regulations are relaxed before they are implemented by member states in 2008, doctors will be forced to switch back to X-ray scans instead, which pose well-known cancer hazards.
