The Department of Cardiac Imaging at St Bartholomew’s Hospital has won ‘Diagnostic Team of the Year’ at the British Medical Journal Awards 2018, which took place on 10 May 2018. The team at Barts Heart Centre received the award in recognition of the work they are doing to increase the provision of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to patients who have cardiac devices such as pacemakers. This work is led by Dr. Charlotte Manisty (Senior Lecturer at UCL Institute of Cardiovascular Science and Consultant Cardiologist at Barts) and Dr. Anish Bhuva (BHF Clinical Research Training Fellow and NHS Innovation Clinical Entrepreneur Fellow) who had recognised that patients with cardiac pacemakers or defibrillators were unable to access MRI scans when they were needed, leading to delays in their diagnosis and treatment. MRI is essential for diagnosis and treatment planning for many conditions, including cancer and stroke. Currently there are 440,000 people in the UK with a pacemaker or defibrillator implanted, each with a 75% lifetime chance of needing an MRI scan. The total number of scans performed each year on patients with implanted devices is only around 1000, but an estimated 50,000 are needed.
To improve access to MRI scans, the team at St Bartholomew’s Hospital brought together a team including cardiologists, radiographers, radiologists, electrophysiologists, device technicians to enable delivery of a timely ‘one-stop’ service, suitable for this group of patients and designed to eliminate delays. With the assistance of Dr Peter Kellman, Visiting Professor at Insitute of Cardiovascular Science and Director of the Medical Signal and Image Processing Program at the National Heart Lung Blood Institute, US they have designed and implemented new MRI sequences able to optimise image quality in these patients. Over two years the team have scanned over six times as many patients, reducing waiting times for patients and now receives referrals from hospitals across the country to help their patients. Alongside this, research from the team has been presented internationally and published. The team has produced educational materials, set up a website (http://www.mrimypacemaker.com), and their work has driven changes to British Heart Rhythm Society Guidelines, to help other hospitals to follow their example, to enable patients to access the important MRI scans to help their clinical care.