Artifacts in Magnetic Resonance Imaging from Metals

Metallic biomedical implants, such as aneurysm clips, endoprostheses, and internal orthopedic devices give rise to artifacts in the magnetic resonance image (MRI) of patients. Such artifacts impair the information contained in the image in precisely the region of most interest, namely near the metallic device. Ferromagnetic materials are contraindicated because of the hazards associated with their movement during the MRI procedure. In less-magnetic metals, it has been suggested that the extent of the artifact is related to the magnetic susceptibility of the the metal, but no systematic data appear to be available. When the susceptibility is sufficiently small, an additional artifact due to electrical conductivity is observed. We present an initial systematic study of MRI artifacts produced by two low susceptibility metals, titanium (relative permeability μr ≈ 1.0002) and copper (μr ≈ 0.99998), including experimental, theoretical, and computer simulation results.