After years of trying to get the FDA and medical community’s attention about the issue of Gadolinium retention in patients with normal kidney function, it looks like our efforts have begun to pay off.

I want to share some news about Dr. Emanuel (Manny) Kanal.  If you aren’t familiar with his name, Dr. Kanal is a leading radiologist and someone the FDA looks to for advice on matters related to MRI Safety.  Duke and I have been in communication with him since October of 2013.

As you might imagine, MRI Safety is an important issue that requires medical professionals to stay well-informed about safety issues directly related to MR devices as well as the Gadolinium-based Contrast Agents administered for contrast-enhanced MRI and MRA.  Since June of this year, Dr. Kanal has been conducting MRI Safety Officer (MRSO) and MRI Medical Director (MRMD) Seminars.

During a seminar on September 9, 2014, Dr. Kanal provided a “Gadolinium Contrast Overview”.  According to the MRI Patient Safety blog, besides describing the state of NSF, he described “new and growing concerns about non-NSF bio-retention”.  The following is from a blog post and it can be found at http://mripatientsafety.com/blog/?p=218.

“A small number of cases, including one presented by Dr. Kanal from his own site, show abnormal, increasing T1 shortening within specific areas of the brain in patients with normal renal function who have received multiple doses of one or more of a few gadolinium-based contrast agents (without apparent toxic effects). If the enhancement is due to gad accumulation, this conflicts with what has been believed about retention / elimination of GBCA.

In a similar recent development, a self-organizing patient community is releasing test results that show significant gadolinium elimination, months or years following contrast enhanced MRI exam. This small group says that not only have they retained the gadolinium from their MR exams far beyond its projected clearance, but that the gadolinium they received caused a variety of persistent symptoms very shortly following contrast administration.”

We are that “self-organizing patient community” that he referred to.  While Dr. Kanal needs to see more scientific proof of gadolinium retention in patients with normal kidney function, he nonetheless seems open to the possibility that it does occur.  What that means for the future use of GBCAs is still unknown, but the fact that Dr. Kanal even mentioned our group is a huge step in the right direction.

I am very encouraged that Dr. Kanal decided to mention findings from our self-study papers in his MRI Safety Seminars.  I don’t believe he would have done that unless he thought the study results we presented had merit.

But the good news does not end there.  We also learned that MRI Facebook groups comprised of more than 8,000 medical professionals from around the world have been told about our GadoliniumToxicity.com website.  They will now have access to our self-study papers and other important information related to gadolinium retention in patients without severe kidney disease.

Hopefully professional research related to long-term retention of gadolinium from GBCAs and the ensuing chronic symptoms of Gadolinium Toxicity will be conducted in the near future.

Sharon W