Expert: Dina Q Goldin, Ph.D. - 12/9/2008

Question
Hello
Thank you for your very informative contributions to this site! I'd be grateful if you could answer my query. I am writing from the UK.
Because of recent symptoms - an ENT consultant sent me for an MRI saying they wanted to rule out AN and suggested I may have cochlear menieres/hydrops.

However, the MRI was performed without contrast dye.
When I queried this when booking into the clinic they said they only use dye occasionally, halfway through the procedure. The scan only took about 15 - 20 minutes - does that suggest that they used one of the superfast MRI scanners that give such good quality that gadolinium is not needed?
Many Thanks for your time
Clare

Answer
It is true that the gadolinium dye is only used halfway through the MRI procedure. I am not sure about the length of the procedure; however, if  it did not involve any injections half-way through, then clearly the dye was not used. So unfortunately in this case the MRI was not performed properly for the purpose of ruling out AN, and has to be redone. If you want to be sure of what happened, you may want to request a copy of your radiological report.  You may also want to know that there is a more simple and inexpensive test to rule out AN, known as the BSER test (Brain Stem Evoked Response test, aka ABER).  It is painless, much better than it sounds, and it will determine if there is any chance of a tumor or not.