How long does it take to do an MRI?
I am also and MRI tech, but I work on a regular short bore machine. Again as previously stated it depends on what you are having scanned and if contrast is to be used. A lumbar spine exam at my hospital takes around 17 minutes without contrast and about 25 minutes with contrast. Straight forward brain with and without contrast is approximately half a hour. Knee exams take 40 minutes. I always say approximately because if the patient moves around even a little bit the images will be blurry and the series will be repeated. MRI exams are always broke down into series/scans, each will sound differently and take a different amount of time. What scans are ran are determined by your physicians order, what the exam is looking for and the facilities protocols. Yes they seem to take a long time but the information given by MRI scan really helps your doctor find problems that may never show up any other way.
It really depends on many things….which body part, how many sequences (types of pictures), the machine, are thin slices through a certain area needed (for example, internal auditory canals of the ear or pituitary)? I work on an open MRI, and we schedule the majority of our exams in one hour slots. Sometimes, I use the whole hour, and sometimes, I only need 45 minutes. If I am doing a brain with thin slices (either through the IACs or pituitary gland) or a lumbar spine study on a patient who has had back surgery, I allot one and a half hours. Call the facility where you are scheduled and ask how long YOUR specific exam will take.
