FAQs

We understand how frustrating it can be when a participant no-shows or arrives with a disqualifying condition. For example, a recent surgery or procedure that violates our safety guidelines can prevent scanning. While we sympathize with the situation, that scan time was reserved and unavailable to others, so your project will still be billed for the session.
However, if you’re able to schedule a different eligible participant before the scan time begins, you’re welcome to use that slot for another study within your lab. Please note that this time cannot be reassigned as development time, but it may be used for piloting under an active grant tag.

Yes, any time your participant uses (including delays) is considered part of your reserved time. If your sessions runs over your scheduled time, you will be billed accordingly.

Development sessions are free to users up to a limited number of hours per group each fiscal year. Development sessions will appear on your invoice for record keeping purposes, but typically have no charge associated. Once a group exceeds their development balance, future sessions will incur a charge.

All data is transferred, compressed, and checked before upload to Box. Our goal is to have your data available on Box within 48 business hours.

If your data is still missing after two business days, please email us at cfmi-scanning-team@georgetown.edu. Please see our Data Management Page for more details.

No. Only the first screen should be done by a fully safety trained member of your lab. The second screen must be conducted by a CFMI staff member.

Upon receiving your invoice, please confirm

• Scan dates and times
• Total hours billed
• Work tags used

If there are any errors, please respond to the invoice by the 3rd of the following month. Final charges are submitted by the 5th of the month, so timely review is essential.

CFMI defines an implant as anything in the participant’s body that was not there when they were born. 

The human body at birth is considered safe for MRI, but the additions that are made to the body over the course of life may not be safe. CFMI needs to know about any physical additions to a participant’s body to ensure their safety and data quality.

ONLY an Authorized User (AU) can approve the safety of an implant for participants being scanned at CFMI. An Authorized User is someone who supervises the scanning RAs and assumes responsibility for the safety of all participants who go in the scanner.

An implant is NOT approved for scanning at CFMI by:

• The participant’s personal physician (although their written confirmation that the implant is safe to scan is useful) 
• The PI of a study 
• The research staff of a study
• The CFMI Scanning RAs

An AU review confirms the review you have already conducted as the researcher and is NOT a way to “check if this is safe”. Remember, by the time you are submitting your implant review to an AU, YOU should feel confident and have good reasoning to believe that your participant will be safe to scan at CFMI. 

Please do your best to keep your participants safe and collect as much information as you can before submission!

While hospitals and medical clinics may have certain policies regarding implants, CFMIs policies are intentionally more stringent because a research MRI offers no clinical benefit to the participant. 

When an MRI is deemed clinically necessary in a hospital or other medical setting, a higher level of risk is allowed because the medical benefit to the patient outweighs the potential risks. All research MRIs are voluntary! The participant does not medically benefit from the scan and we, as good researchers, will not put them at an unnecessary risk. 

In addition, hospital policies are different from the policies we follow as a research institution. CFMI conducts MRIs under an Institutional Review Board (IRB) that protects human research participants and does not allow for us to subject them to unnecessary risk. 

An implant is only considered safe to scan at CFMI when it has been reviewed and approved by an Authorized User (AU). 

An implant is NOT automatically considered safe if:

• The implant has been scanned before in a different scanner, at a different hospital/clinic.
  An implant that has been scanned before could have been scanned under different conditions, in a different position, or was just lucky to not cause an adverse effect. 

• The implant is listed as “Conditional” on MRISafety.com.
  We need more information on the implant. For example, an implant could be approved to scan at 1.5T but not at 3T (CFMI scanner is 3T). 
• The participant says it is safe.
  While we appreciate information about the implant from the participant, we cannot take their word for it that their implant is safe to scan. Since CFMI scans are for research purposes only, we do not take on more risk than necessary.

You should expect a response from an Authorized User within 14 business days. The approval process takes time, so you should submit your implant review well ahead of your scan day to ensure you can scan as planned.

Once an Authorized User has approved your implant review request, you will receive an email with subject line “MRI Safety Review #“. The MRI Safety Review # is the ID number CFMI uses to track implants that have been approved.

On your scan day, please bring a printed email of the MRI Safety Review approval that you received from the Authorized User. 
On the participant’s safety screening form, also write the MRI Safety Review # next to the corresponding procedure and implant.

No. If your participant is returning for multiple visits, you just need to have the implant reviewed by an Authorized User before the first visit. For subsequent visits, you can list the MRI Safety Review # associated with that implant on the safety screening form.

Important Note: An MRI Safety Review # is associated with only the implants listed in the review.
If your participant gets a new implant between visits, you will need to submit a separate review for that implant and get it approved before your next scan day.