Are Dental Implants Safe in MRI Exams?

If your implant and cover screw are made of titanium or a titanium alloy (almost all are), then it is safe to undergo a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) procedure. This is because titanium is non-magnetic and the alloy has little to now iron or other ferrous metals/impurities in it so it does not respond to an MRI. There are no other contraindications that I’m aware of.

That said, please don’t assume that your implant is/isn’t made of titanium. Call up the dentist who performed the implant procedure to discuss what your implant is made of and then talk to the technician who will perform the MRI and let them know about any implants or metal prostheses you have in your mouth or elsewhere in your body.

MRI scanners use powerful magnetic fields to create images of the body in order to diagnose medical conditions, determine what stage a disease is at or for follow up. The benefit is that the patient is not exposed to ionizing radiation (unlike X-rays) that are potentially harmful in large doses.

Implants and devices that contain magnetic materials such as stoma plugs, otologic implants, ocular implants, sphincters and certain types of dental implants can be deactivated, damaged or re-positioned by the magnetic fields produced by an MRI. This can injure the patient (rare) or at the very least necessitate surgery to put them back into place or replace them entirely. Most commonly, metals will distort the image around that part of the body.

Does anyone else have experience with MRIs?