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How can I test if the metal left in my body from a surgery is safe for an MRI scan?

I had surgery on my jaw in Korea about 2 years ago, and the doctor told me he used only titanium screws and plates. I had an MRI today, and my face started to feel really tight, and we had to cancel the scan for fears that the implants are indeed NOT titanium. Is there a test I can do to see if the metal is reactive to MRI tests?

Public Comments

1. magnet
2. Not without opening you up. Probably safest to assume it's not MRI-compliant.
3. Not easily. If a very strong magnet were attracted to your implant, that would prove that your implant is not titanium, but if the magnet were not attracted, that would not necessarily prove that your implant was titanium. The only way I know of to really be sure is to get a sample of the metal, and of course that would require surgery. Even titanium implants can heat up in an MRI due to electric currents (called "eddy currents") induced in them by the powerful magnetic fields. My understanding is that usually this isn't a problem, but it is possible that the tightness you felt in your face was due to some small heating of your implant. The safest thing is to follow the advice of your doctor, and avoid MRI. Depending on what your doctor was looking for, you can probably have a different type of scan done, such as CT.
4. Another problem with metal, even if it isn't magnetic, is that if it is close to what's being scanned, it creates artifact that can make the study useless.
5. I'm an MRI tech and any time we have a patient with "questionable implanted metal" we take an X-ray to ascertain what we're dealing with. Also, any time you have a surgery performed and have metal implanted they typically give you a card showing what was implanted and whether or not it is safe for MRI. Since the surgery was performed in Korea I don't know what their procedure is but if you can obtain your medical record of the surgery you can also find out that way what was implanted and what it was made of. Other than that the only thing you can do is try to make it through the test. You are not going to have screws rip out of your face or any of these other myths that people believe about MRI. While the MRI magnet is strong it is not strong enough to rip a piece of implanted metal screwed into bone out of a patient's face (especially because surgical metal is traditionally not magnetic). The worst thing that should happen is the area where you had the surgery may start to feel warm because the metal alloys can heat up when they become excited by the magnetic field. Best advice I can give is try to obtain your surgery report and get an X-ray done of the area. Good luck!