Ask the doctor: MRIs and stents

Ask the doctor

MRIs and stents

Published: May, 2006

Q. I read an article about MRIs being bad for pacemakers and defibrillators. What about stents? They are metal, too. I had two stents put in a few months ago. Can I ever have an MRI?

A. Although it seems as though the wire-mesh stents used to prop open arteries should pose the same sorts of problems in an MRI as pacemakers or implantable cardioverter/defibrillators (ICDs), they don't.

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