Beware the Iron Rich Gravel: Implications for MRI Safety in Australia.

Abstract

Through this case report of a child with intra-orbital and intra-cranial iron-rich gravel foreign bodies, shown on our testing to be strongly ferromagnetic, we aim to raise awareness about the potential for these environmental foreign bodies, which are ubiquitous in Australia, to cause serious harm to patients who undergo MRI. Importantly, environmental foreign bodies of very high (metallic) attenuation on CT should be treated as potentially MRI unsafe until proven otherwise.