Measurement of electromagnetic field strengths in urban and suburban hospital operating rooms

Understanding Electrosurgical Unit Perturbations in Order to Address Hospital Operating Room Electromagnetic Compatibility

“…ESUs have often been identified as one of the main interference sources in these environments [1], [2] as well as being a direct cause of malfunction of other critical medical equipment [3], [4]. Although recommendations for the preparation of operating theatres mention the danger of the ESU electromagnetic interference, they do not propose any solution [5].…”

“…The primary effect of Gd is the shortening of the spinlattice relaxation time T1, resulting in greater signal in T1-weighted images. For low concentrations (C) of the contrast medium, the change in relaxation rate R 1 (= 1=T 1 ) is proportional to C, i.e., R c 1 0 R 1 / C (1) where R c 1 and R 1 are, respectively, the postcontrast and precontrast relaxation rates [4]. If the changes in T1 values can be accurately measured as a function of time (t), an important task in DCE MRI is to further deduce C(t), from which physiological variables associated with tumor microcirculation can be estimated by tracer kinetic modeling [5].…”

“…Recent studies have shown that the approach of dynamic contrastenhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE MRI) offers a promising tool for the differential diagnosis of breast tumors [1]- [3]. It involves the intravenous injection of a gadolinium (Gd) contrast medium and rapid temporal imaging to monitor the changes in the MR signal as a function of time.…”