Modern MRI scanners found to increase mercury leakage in fillings
NewsPosted by: Dental Design 27th June 2018
As revealed in the Independent, modern MRI machines could end up poisoning people who have had a filling put in at the dentist, according to a new study.
New high-powered scanners can cause mercury to leak out of previously set fillings, and the study has shown that levels of the poisonous metal were much higher after they were exposed to the strong magnetic fields the new machines can generate, posing a risk to patents and hospital staff.
When dentists use amalgam for a filling, it is around 50 per cent mercury but the hardening of the liquid when bonded with the chemical structure of the teeth means that any mercury leakage is minimal until it is exposed to strong magnetic fields like that of an MRI.
Scientific adviser to the BDA Professor Damien Walmsley told The Independent: “This will be a decreasing problem in time but the development of new ultra-high-strength scanners, which were only approved by the US Food and Drug Administration last year, needs to be reviewed closely.”
