To all research teams accessing the BC Children's Hospital MRI Research Facility:
In order to be consistent with the UBC MRI Research Centre, unless your study protocol involves a formal clinical evaluation and written report by a radiologist, please revise your consent form the next time your research project is up for ethics renewal to include the following paragraph:
Incidental Findings:
As this will NOT be a medically indicated examination, there will be no formal review of the MRI scan and no report. The MRI scan being done is designed to answer research questions, not to provide diagnostic medical imaging. This MRI scan is not a substitute for one a doctor would order. It may not show problems that would be picked up by a medical MRI scan. However, if we believe that we have found a medical problem in your MRI scan, we will ask a doctor who is trained in the reading of MRI scans, a radiologist, to help us review the scan. If the radiologist thinks that there may be an abnormality in your MRI scan, we will contact you and with your permission, contact your family physician and help him or her get the right follow-up for you. No information generated in this study will become part of your record routinely. However, if the study detects an abnormality in your MRI scan and further follow-up is required, then this information may become part of your record.
Notes:
1. ‘Incidental Findings’ refers to something our MR technologist notices that does not appear as normal on an MR image collected on a volunteer.
2. This wording has been approved by the UBC Clinical Research Ethics Board and is already in use by some UBC researchers.
Approved by the BCCH MRI Research Facility Protocol Review Committee
November, 2015