This is the chart that we think depicts the recent state of MRI safety by looking at MRI accident rates. The data -or, more specifically, the direct deduction that it supports- makes some people downright hostile because it directly refutes the pervasive MRI public relations campaign… “MRI is the safe modality.”
To be clear, MRI injury accidents have been, and remain, rare, but in nearly every case of MRI injury accident there was an existing, well known and widely promulgated best practice prevention that wasn’t used. In other words, we could -if we so chose- prevent nearly every MRI injury accident that occurs… we just choose not to.
So the chart…
Using the year 2000 as a baseline (it is a particularly good date with which to set a starting point for time comparison), we’ve been comparing the annual percentage change in each MRI accidents (adverse events classified with the MRI 3-letter product code “LNH” in the FDA’s MAUDE database) against US MRI exam volume (procedures volume as published most years on AuntMinnie from the market research firm IMV). Simply, the red line represents growth in MRI adverse events and the blue line represents growth in MRI exam volume.
If you apply ‘best fit’ slopes to each of these two datasets you learn that reported MRI adverse events are growing at rates between 2x and 4x the rate of growth of MRI procedure volume (depending on the weighting given to the 2008 – 2012 ‘hump’ of MRI adverse events in the data).
Said simply, this data indicates that MRI adverse events are both greater in number, and represent a greater proportion of MRI exams, than twenty years ago. An MRI patient, today, appears to have a greater likelihood of an adverse event than an MRI patient in 2001. Despite more experience and more knowledge, we’re producing more MRI adverse events… Facts that shouldn’t coexist.
This is why our industry, and each and every individual MRI provider, needs to take long hard looks at their own practices and identify ways in which their assumptions and ‘the way we’ve always done things’ might be contributing to our national growth in MRI adverse events.
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Excellent article. Well explained. You can’t argue with the numbers. It is an unfortunate trend towards someone’s going to have a bad day. I attribute this to the “do more with less” culture/way of doing things as the root cause.
Another contributing factor is a lack of training. Employers often rush things. They just want the buttons pushed, and the exams billed out. Medicine sure isn’t what it used to be.