BRIEF REPORT: Attitude towards MRI safety during pregnancy

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been in clinical use for more than two decades. At the time of introduction of this important diagnostic tool, there were many concerns about its safety and the effects of the different types of magnetic fields utilized in MRI on the body tissues. Safety of MRI in pregnancy, however, was and still is one of the important concerns. There is an extensive body of literature on the issue of safety of MRI during pregnancy1 and overall the results indicate that there is no significant evidence of harm or injuryto the fetus from exposure to a magnetic field during MRI. However, there is at the same time no proof of safety and further research in this area is still needed to reach a solid conclusion.1 It is not easy to ascertainsafety of MRI during pregnancy or otherwise with retrospective or prospective data because there are a near infinite number of possible combinations of factors that influence the risk, such as static magnetic field strength, gradient magnetic field and radiofrequency energy variability,and scan time.2 Furthermore, confounding factors responsible for the high rate of spontaneous abortion in humans are not possible to control throughout pregnancy when studying exposure to magnetic field in early pregnancy