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Magnetic susceptibility artifact

Last revised by Tariq Walizai on 5 Dec 2024

Citation, DOI, disclosures and article data

Citation:

Walizai T, Er A, Bickle I, et al. Magnetic susceptibility artifact. Reference article, Radiopaedia.org (Accessed on 19 Jan 2025) https://doi.org/10.53347/rID-18971

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.53347/rID-18971

Permalink:

https://radiopaedia.org/articles/18971

rID:

18971

Article created:

30 Jul 2012, Usman Bashir

Disclosures:

At the time the article was created Usman Bashir had no recorded disclosures.

View Usman Bashir's current disclosures

Last revised:

5 Dec 2024, Tariq Walizai

Disclosures:

At the time the article was last revised Tariq Walizai had no financial relationships to ineligible companies to disclose.

View Tariq Walizai's current disclosures

Revisions:

21 times, by 14 contributors - see full revision history and disclosures

Sections:

Imaging Technology

Tags:

refs

Synonyms:

Magnetic susceptibility artefact
Magnetic susceptibility artefacts
Magnetic susceptibility artifacts

Magnetic susceptibility artifacts (or just susceptibility artifacts) refer to a variety of MRI artifacts that share distortions or local signal change due to local magnetic field inhomogeneities from a variety of compounds.

They are especially encountered while imaging near metallic orthopedic hardware or dental work, and result from local magnetic field inhomogeneities introduced by the metallic object into the otherwise homogeneous external magnetic field B₀. These local magnetic field inhomogeneities are a property of the object being imaged, rather than of the MRI unit itself.

A common susceptibility-related artifact, deliberately sought to make small lesions more conspicuous, is the blooming artifact.

Types of magnetic susceptibility

In terms of magnetic susceptibility, most materials can be classified as diamagnetic, paramagnetic, superparamagnetic, or ferromagnetic.

Diamagnetic

Water is considered (weakly) diamagnetic.

Paramagnetic

Paramagnetic materials, which have unpaired electrons, concentrate local magnetic forces and thus increase the local magnetic field, i.e. have increased magnetic susceptibility.

Superparamagnetic

Superparamagnetic materials contain particles with a much stronger magnetic susceptibility than that of paramagnetic materials, e.g. SPIO (superparamagnetic iron oxide) has been used in liver imaging.

Ferromagnetic

Ferromagnetic materials contain large solid or crystalline aggregates of molecules with unpaired electrons and exhibit “magnetic memory”, by which a lingering magnetic field is created after their exposure to an external magnetic field. Examples of ferromagnetic metals include iron, nickel, and cobalt, all of which distort magnetic fields, thereby causing severe artifacts on MR images.

References

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