Code blue in the MR suite--a drill to rescue a patients with cardiac arrest from the MR scanner.

Background: Dobutamine stress MR (DSMR) is increasingly used in the clinical routine. Due to the limitations inherent to MR, i.e. the distance of the personnel to the patient during imaging, it is necessary to set up an emergency training to rescue a patient from the scanner room in the shortest possible time.

Methods: We placed a volunteer in the 1.5 T scanner. Monitoring devices are attached in the same way as a patient would be prepared. A team of four performed the drill, everybody assigned to a certain task and position of the rescue procedure. In consecutive order, scanning was stopped, the MR table was released and the team entered the scanner room. The monitoring equipment was removed from the volunteer and he was slid onto a stretcher and moved out of the scanner room.

Results: The drill was performed 30 times, 3 teams were involved. The minimum time required was 32 s, maximum was 52 s. The amount of practice runs significantly reduced the rescue time. Team 1 with 15 runs had an average time of 39+/-6 s vs. team 2 with 9 runs (45+/-3 s, p<0.02) or team 3 with 6 runs (46+/-3 s, p<0.01). Team 1 practiced on three separate days each with five practice runs and consecutively improved from day one (43+/-5 s) to day three (35+/-2 s, p<0.02).

Conclusion: A significant reduction in rescue time can be achieved with repetitive exercise. We recommend repetitive training with various scenarios, volunteers and personnel involved in the DSMR testing.