Personal exposure to static and time‐varying magnetic fields during MRI system test procedures

Purpose: To assess personal time‐weighted average (TWA) static magnetic field and time‐varying magnetic field exposure for several system testing tasks routinely conducted by engineers at an MRI manufacturing plant. Materials and Methods: Personal exposure was measured using a personal dosimeter that measured B and dB/dt in all three orthogonal directions with a 1 Hz frequency. TWA exposure was calculated and random effects and linear mixed effects models were used to assess exposure levels and variability. Results: Whereas full‐body peak (2T) and TWA (200 mT/8 h) exposure limits for the static magnetic field originally proposed by ICNIRP were not exceeded, time‐varying magnetic field peaks (dB/dt) did exceed the proposed threshold value (767.9 mT/s) suggested by IEEE on several occasions at the 3.0 Tesla (T) whole‐body cylindrical system. Conclusion: TWA exposure levels are well below the proposed limit values, but peak exposure limits are exceeded during certain procedures performed on 1.0T to 3.0T systems. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2009;30:1223–1228. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.