Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Below are the ARRT category specifications for exam coverage.

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ARRT Magnetic Resonance Imaging exam categories

200 Total Questions
1. Patient Interactions and Management
A. Ethical and Legal Aspects
1. patients’ rights
a. informed consent (*e.g., written, oral, implied)
b. confidentiality (HIPAA)
c. American Hospital Association (AHA) Patient Care Partnership (Patients’ Bill of Rights)
1. privacy
2. extent of care (e.g., DNR)
3. access to information
4. living will, health care proxy, advance directive
5. research participation
2. legal issues
a. verification (e.g., patient identification, compare order to clinical indication)
b. common terminology(e.g., battery, negligence, malpractice, beneficence)
c. legal doctrines (e.g., respondeat superior, res ipsa loquitur)
d. restraints versus immobilization
3. ARRT Standards of Ethics
B. Interpersonal Communication
1. modes of communication
a. verbal/written
b. nonverbal (e.g., eye contact, touching)
2. challenges in communication
a. interactions with others
1. language barriers
2. cultural and social factors
3. physical or sensory impairments
4. age
5. emotional status, acceptance of condition
b. explanation of medical terms
c. strategies to improve understanding
3. patient education
a. explanation of current procedure (e.g., purpose, exam length)
b. pre- and post-procedure instructions (e.g., preparations, diet, medications, discharge instructions)
c. respond to inquiries about other imaging modalities
d. communication with patient during procedure
C. Physical Assistance and Monitoring
1. patient transfer and movement
a. body mechanics (e.g., balance, alignment, movement)
b. patient transfer techniques
2. assisting patients with medical equipment
a. infusion catheters and pumps
b. oxygen delivery systems
c. other (e.g., nasogastric tubes, urinary catheters, tracheostomy tubes)
3. routine monitoring
a. vital signs
b. physical signs and symptoms
c. fall prevention
d. documentation
e. sedated patients
f. claustrophobic patients
D. Medical Emergencies
1. allergic reactions (e.g., contrast media, latex)
2. cardiac/respiratory arrest (e.g., CPR)
3. physical injury, trauma, or RF burn
4. other medical disorders (e.g., seizures, diabetic reactions)
E. Infection Control
1. chain of infection (cycle of infection)
a. pathogen
b. reservoir
c. portal of exit
d. mode of transmission
1. direct
2. indirect
e. portal of entry
f. susceptible host
2. asepsis
a. equipment disinfection
b. equipment sterilization
c. medical aseptic technique
d. sterile technique
3. CDC Standard Precautions
a. hand hygiene
b. use of personal protective equipment (e.g., gloves, gowns, masks)
c. safe handling of contaminated equipment/surfaces
d. disposal of contaminated materials
1. linens
2. needles
3. patient supplies
4. blood and body fluids
e. safe injection practices
4. transmission-based precautions
a. contact
b. droplet
c. airborne
5. additional precautions
a. neutropenic precautions (reverseisolation)
b. healthcare associated (nosocomial)infections
F. Handling and Disposal of Toxic or Hazardous Material
1. types of materials
a. chemicals
b. chemotherapy
2. safety data sheet (e.g., material safety data sheets)
G. Pharmacology
1. patient history
a. medication reconciliation (current medications)
b. premedications
c. contraindications
d. scheduling and sequencing examinations
2. administration
a. routes (e.g., IV, oral)
b. supplies (e.g., needles)
c. procedural technique (e.g., venipuncture)
d. dose calculation
e. power injector
1. fluoro-triggering
2. timing bolus
3. automatic bolus tracking
3. contrast media types and properties(e.g., gadolinium, linear versus macrocyclic, ionic versus non-ionic)
4. appropriateness of contrast media to examination
a. patient condition
b. patient age and weight
c. laboratory values (e.g., BUN, creatinine, eGFR)
5. complications/reactions
a. local effects(e.g., extravasation/infiltration,phlebitis)
b. systemic effects
1. maild
2. moderate
3. severe
c. emergency medications
d. technologist’s response and documentation
1. MRI Screening and Safety
A. Screening and Education (patients, personnel, non-personnel)
1. biomedical implants
a. identify and document device, year, make, model
b. research and verify device labeling(MR safe, MR conditional,MR unsafe)
c. identify device specific parameters
d. scanning conditional implants
2. ferrous foreign bodies
3. medical conditions(e.g., pregnancy)
4. prior diagnostic or surgical procedures
5. topical or externally applied items(e.g., tattoos, medication patches,body piercing jewelry, monitoring devices, clothing)
6. level 1 and level 2 MR personnel
B. Electromagnetic Fields
1. static field
a. translational and rotational forces
b. magnetohydrodynamic effect
c. magnetohemodynamic effect
d. magnetic shielding
e. spatial gradient of the static magnetic field
f. FDA guidelines
2. radiofrequency (RF) field
a. thermal heating (specific absorption rate [SAR])
b. conductive loops
c. proximity burns
d. RF shielding
e. FDA guidelines
3. gradient field
a. current induction
b. acoustic noise
c. peripheral neurostimulation
d. magnetophosphenes
e. FDA guidelines
C. Equipment
1. placement of conductors(e.g., ECG leads, coils, cables)
2. cryogen safety
3. ancillary equipment (MR safe, MR conditional, MR unsafe)
D. Environment
1. climate control (temperature, humidity)
2. designated MR safety zones
3. gauss lines
4. emergency procedures(e.g., quench, fire)
1. Physical Principles of ImageFormation
A. Instrumentation
1. electromagnetism (e.g., Faraday’s law)
2. static magnet
a. types (superconductive, resistive, permanent)
b. magnetic field strength
c. shim coils
3. RF system
a. coil configuration
b. surface coils
c. phased array coils
d. transmit and receive coils
e. transmit and receive bandwidth
f. pulse profile
4. gradient system
a. gradient coil configuratio
b. slew rate
c. rise time
d. duty cycle
B. Fundamentals
1. nuclear magnetism
a. Larmor equation
b. precession
c. gyromagnetic ratio
d. resonance
e. RF pulse
f. equilibrium magnetization
g. energy state transitions
h. phase coherence
i. free induction decay (FID)
j. magnetic susceptibility(e.g., diamagnetism, paramagnetism, superparamagnetism, ferromagnetism)
2. tissue characteristics
a. T1 recovery
b. T2 decay (relaxation)
c. T2* (susceptibility)
d. proton (spin) density (PD)
e. flow
f. diffusion
g. perfusion
3. spatial localization
a. vectors
b. X, Y, Z coordinate system
c. physical gradient
d. slice select gradient
e. phase-encoding gradient
f. frequency (readout) gradient
g. sampling frequency/rate
h. k-space (raw data)
C. Artifacts (Cause, Appearance, and Compensation)**
1. aliasing
2. Gibbs, truncation
3. chemical shift
4. chemical misregistration
5. magnetic susceptibility
6. radiofrequency (e.g., zipper)
7. motion and flow (e.g., patient motion, ghosting)
8. partial volume averaging
9. crosstalk
10. cross excitation
11. moiré pattern
12. parallel imaging artifacts
13. eddy currents
14. dielectric effect
D. Quality Control
1. slice thickness
2. spatial resolution
3. contrast resolution
4. signal to noise
5. center frequency
6. transmit gain
7. geometric accuracy
8. equipment inspection(e.g., coils, cables, door seals)
2. Sequence Parameters and Options
A. Imaging Parameters
1. repetition time (TR)
2. echo time (TE)
3. inversion time (TI)
4. number of signal averages(NSA, NEX)
5. flip angle (e.g., Ernst angle)
6. field of view (FOV)
7. matrix
8. pixel
9. voxel
10. number of slices
11. slice thickness and gap
12. phase and frequency
13. echo train length (ETL)
14. effective TE
15. bandwidth (transmit, receive)
16. concatenations(number of acquisitions per TR)
17. b-value
18. velocity encoding (VENC)
B. Image Contrast
1. T1 weighted
2. T2 weighted
3. PD weighted
4. T2* weighted
5. diffusion weighted imaging (DWI)
6. susceptibility weighted imaging (SWI)
C. Imaging Options
1. 2D/3D
2. slice order(sequential, interleaving)
3. spatial saturation pulse/band
4. gradient moment nulling
5. suppression techniques(e.g., fat, water, Dixon method)
6. physiologic gating and triggering
7. in-phase/out-of-phase
8. rectangular FOV
9. anti-aliasing
10. parallel imaging
11. filtering
3. Data Acquisition, Processing, and Storage
A. Pulse Sequences
1. spin echo (SE)
a. conventional spin echo
b. fast spin echo (FSE)
2. inversion recovery (IR) (e.g., STIR, FLAIR)
3. gradient echo (GRE)
a. conventional gradient echo
b. spoiled gradient echo
c. coherent gradient echo
d. steady state free precession (SSFP)
e. fast gradient echo
f. MRA/MRV
1. flow dynamics
2. time-of-flight (TOF)
3. phase contrast
4. contrast enhanced
4. echo planar imaging (EPI)
5. diffusion weighted imaging (DWI)
6. susceptibility weighted imaging (SWI)
7. perfusion
8. spectroscopy
B. Data Manipulation
1. k-space mapping and filling (e.g., centric, spiral, keyhole)
2. fast Fourier transformation (FFT)
3. post-processing
a. maximum intensity projection (MIP)reformation
b. multiplanar reformation (MPR)
c. subtraction
d. apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) mapping
e. CINE
C. Informatics
1. hard/electronic copy (e.g., DICOM file format)
2. archive
3. PACS and electronic medical record (EMR)
4. security and confidentiality
5. networking
1. Neurological
A. Head and Neck
1. brain
2. brain for MS
3. brain for seizure
4. infant brain (less than one year old)
5. brain for CSF Flow
6. IACs
7. pituitary
8. orbits
9. cranial nerves (non IACs)
10. vascular head (MRA)
11. vascular head (MRV)
12. brain perfusion
13. brain spectroscopy
14. sinuses
15. soft tissue neck(e.g., parotids, thyroid)
16. vascular neck
B. Spine
1. cervical
2. thoracic
3. lumbar
4. sacrum-coccyx
5. sacroiliac (SI) joints
6. whole spine
7. brachial plexus
8. lumbar plexus
2. Body
A. Thorax
1. chest (non cardiac)
2. breast
3. vascular thorax
B. Abdomen
1. liver
2. pancreas
3. MRCP
4. adrenals
5. kidneys
6. enterography
7. vascular abdomen
C. Pelvis
1. soft tissue pelvis(e.g., bladder, rectum)
2. female soft tissue pelvis (e.g., uterus)
3. male soft tissue pelvis(e.g., prostate)
4. vascular pelvis(e.g., femoral, iliac)
3. Musculoskeletal
A. Temporomandibular Joints (TMJs)
B. Sternum
C. Sternoclavicular (SC) Joints
D. Shoulder
E. Long Bones (upper extremity)
F. Elbow
G. Wrist
H. Hand
I. Fingers (non thumb)
J. Thumb
K. Bony Pelvis
L. Hip
M. Long Bones (lower extremity)
N. Knee
O. Ankle
P. Foot
Q. Arthrogram
R. Vascular Extremities

Magnetic Resonance Imaging Exam

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