IT'IS Hosts Thermal Dose Workshop 2019

The IT'IS Foundation hosted Thermal Dose Workshop 2019 at Z43 on April 2–3, 2019, gathering experts from around the globe to discuss critical safety issues in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Participants from industry – including representatives of MRI manufacturers – medicine, and academia packed the third-floor meeting room for two days of presentations on a wide range of pertinent topics and focussed discussion to guide decisions on the best safety limits for MRI and how to implement them. This event was embedded during a week-long meeting of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) MT40 team to allow them to incorporate the take-away messages from the workshop into the draft of the latest version of the MRI safety standard 60601-2-33.

The first day of the workshop was dedicated to finding the thermal limits, with presentations on mathematical models of heat stress, the molecular biology of the heat-shock response, local and systemic effects of thermal stress, epidemiology, and theoretical and practical aspects of the cumulative equivalent time at 43°C (CEM43) concept. During the second day, approaches to reasonable implementation guidelines to ensure compliance with the basic restrictions in the standard, including discussions of uncertainty, were covered. The conclusions from the two days on safe systemic and local heating will be consolidated with the view to provide end-user-friendly guidelines for implementation of Edition 4 of IEC-60601-2-33.

IT'IS is grateful to Siemens, Philips, and GE Healthcare for monetary support, and many thanks to all participants for their engagement and contributions to this very successful event!