Comment from Chol Kim
AnonymousSupportIndividual
Summary: An MRI safety professional supports the petition requiring manufacturers to provide whole-bore RF field maps in a clinically useful format. They argue that these maps would provide essential visual information to help clinical staff better assess risks, improve patient positioning, and reduce RF-related injuries.
I strongly support this petition requesting that MRI manufacturers provide whole-bore RF field maps in a clinically useful format.
As an MRI safety professional working in a front-line clinical environment, I believe this information would significantly improve patient safety. RF-related heating and burns remain one of the most important safety concerns in MRI, especially for patients with implants, external devices, conductive materials, unusual positioning, or body habitus that may increase localized heating risk.
Currently, MRI staff rely heavily on SAR, B1+rms, manufacturer labeling, and general safety instructions. While these tools are important, they do not provide a clear visual understanding of where RF exposure may be higher within the bore. Whole-bore RF maps would give MRI technologists, MR safety officers, radiologists, physicists, and biomedical engineers more meaningful information to assess risk and improve clinical decision-making.
Providing RF maps would not replace existing safety limits or manufacturer instructions. Instead, it would add an important layer of transparency, similar to the way static magnetic field and spatial gradient information are already provided. This would allow facilities to better understand scanner-specific risk areas, improve patient positioning strategies, support safer implant/device evaluations, and enhance MRI safety education.
I respectfully encourage the FDA to require MRI vendors to provide standardized, clinically usable whole-bore RF field maps for MRI systems. This would be a practical and important step toward reducing preventable RF-related injuries and improving patient safety across all MRI facilities.