• Marieke Voet, Christiaan G Overduin, Ernst L Stille, Jurgen J Fütterer, and Joris Lemson.
• Department of Anesthesiology, Pain and Palliative Medicine, Radboud University Medical Center, P.O. Box 9101, HP 717, 6500 HB, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Marieke.Voet@radboudumc.nl.
• J Clin Monit Comput. 2022 Feb 1; 36 (1): 141-145.

AbstractThermodilution cardiac output monitoring, using a thermistor-tipped intravascular catheter, is used in critically ill patients to guide hemodynamic therapy. Often, these patients also need magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for diagnostic or prognostic reasons. As thermodilution catheters contain metal, they are considered MRI-unsafe and advised to be removed prior to investigation. However, removal and replacement of the catheter carries risks of bleeding, perforation and infection. This research is an in vitro safety assessment of the PiCCO™ thermodilution catheter during 3 T Magnetic Resonance Imaging (3T-MRI).  In a 3T-MRI environment, three different PiCCO™ catheter sizes were investigated in an agarose-gel, tissue mimicking phantom. Two temperature probes measured radiofrequency-induced heating; one at the catheter tip and one at a reference point. Magnetically induced catheter dislocation was assessed by visual observation as well as by analysis of the tomographic images. For all tested catheters, the highest measured temperature increase was 0.2 °C at the center of the bore and 0.3 °C under "worst-case" setting for the tested MRI pulse sequences. No magnetically induced catheter displacements were observed. Under the tested circumstances, no heating or dislocation of the PiCCO™ catheter was observed in a tissue mimicking phantom during 3T-MRI. Leaving the catheter in the critically ill patient during MRI investigation might pose a lower risk of complications than catheter removal and replacement.© 2021. The Author(s).

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