A boy and his mother have sued Oregon Health & Science University, claiming he was burned after an imaging tech left pads containing metal attached to his body during a magnetic resonance imaging exam.
Aaron Lee was administered an MRI at OHSU in September 2011 after first receiving an electrocardiogram to examine his heart rate. Patches affixed to his chest for the electrocardiogram were not removed for the MRI, although they contained metal discs, according to the lawsuit filed March 13 by Lee and his mother, Sharon. The suit claims the metal heated up and left Lee with permanent scars.
According to the suit, an MRI tech admonished Lee to be quiet and still when he repeatedly cried out in pain and asked for the 20-minute procedure to stop. It asks for $30,000 in economic damages, and $2 million for pain and suffering, saying Lee suffered post-traumatic stress disorder from the experience.
The university cannot comment specifically on lawsuits due to federal health privacy laws, according to a written statement. "However, we can say that patient safety is our top priority and that we are committed to maintaining the highest level of quality and safety by continually improving our processes."
Jane Clark, Lee's attorney, said he was in the hospital for abdominal pains, and was 16 and living in Vancouver at the time. She said that some of the dime-sized scars have faded, and others have not. He now lives in New York.
The case is not unheard of. Mechanical implants, drug patches and even tattoo ink with metal in it can react to MRIs. In 1991, a safety alert from the ECRI Institute, a nonprofit that tracks patient safety issues, mentioned several cases of MRI-caused burns, including from electrocardiogram electrodes. Some required skin grafts.