PATIENT ACCEPTANCE OF HIGH-FIELD WHOLE-BO DY MR SYSTEMS, OPEN MR SYSTEMS AND DEDICATED MR SYSTEMS FOR THE EXTREMITIES

To our knowledge no comparative studies investigating patients' accept ance of different MR systems have been published. We therefore studied a number of subjective criteria to evaluate both patients' acceptance of and subjective conditions during magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies. MRI studies were performed using four separate systems. Two w ere conventional body MR systems operating at 1.0 or 1.5 Tesla, anothe r was a 0.2 Tesla open whole-body MR system, and the last was a 0.2 Te sla MR system dedi dedicated to the study of extremities. Forty patien ts for each MR system (total of 160 patients) participated in a standa rdized, written interview focusing on aspects of their subjective cond ition, including their perception and acceptance of different factors relevant to the study on respective MR systems. The patients' subjecti ve condition and acceptance was predominantly positive for all MR syst ems. Differences between MR systems were noted with respect to noise, width of patient gantry, comfort of patient positioning and degree of well-being. Such differences, however, do not lend preference to the u se of one particular type of MR system. Therefore, the choice of MR sy stem should be based on the technical features required for the intend ed studies.