Occupational Exposure Assessment of the Static Magnetic Field Generated by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy: A Case Study

Abstract

Magnetic resonance (MR) systems are used in academic research laboratories and industrial research fields, besides representing one of the most important imaging modalities in clinical radiology. This technology does not use ionizing radiation, but it cannot be considered without risks. These risks are associated with the working principle of the technique, which mainly involves static magnetic fields that continuously increase—namely, the radiofrequency (RF) field and spatial magnetic field gradient. To prevent electromagnetic hazards, the EU and ICNIRP have defined workers’ exposure limits. Several studies that assess health risks for workers and patients of diagnostic MR are reported in the literature, but data on workers’ risk evaluation using nuclear MR (NMR) spectroscopy are very poor. Therefore, the aim of this research is the risk assessment of an NMR environment, paying particular attention to workers with active implantable medical devices (AIMDs). Our perspective study consisted of the measurement of the static magnetic field around a 300 MHz (7 T) NMR research spectrometer and the computation of the electric field induced by the movements of an operator. None of the calculated exposure parameters exceeded the threshold limits imposed by legislation for protection against short-term effects of acute occupational exposure, but our results revealed that the level of exposure exceeded the action level threshold limit for workers with AIMD during the execution of tasks requiring the closest proximity to the spectrometer. Moreover, the strong dependence of the induced electric field results from the walking speed models is shown. This case study represents a snapshot of the NMR risk assessment with the specific goal to increase the interest in the safety of NMR environments.