Would it be safe to have a dog in the MRI scanner before your own examination? A multicenter study to establish hygiene facts related to dogs and men.

Objectives: To determine whether it would be hygienic to evaluate dogs and humans in the same MRI scanner.

Methods: We compared the bacterial load in colony-forming units (CFU) of human-pathogenic microorganisms in specimens taken from 18 men and 30 dogs. In addition, we compared the extent of bacterial contamination of an MRI scanner shared by dogs and humans with two other MRI scanners used exclusively by humans.