Dear Dr. Roach: I had a pituitary tumor that was discovered over 25 years ago. For years, I had an MRI with and without dye every six months. Then it changed to once a year. Can you get damage from too many brain MRIs?

— D.J.

Dear D.J.: An MRI uses powerful magnetic fields to take pictures of the body, and the resulting detail of soft tissue (such as the brain) is generally more helpful than a CT scan. Furthermore, MRI does not use ionizing radiation, so there is not a risk of cancer as there is from excess X-rays and CT scans (although the risk of cancer from X-rays and CT scans is probably small).

There has been concern about the MRI dye, called gadolinium. Some gadolinium dyes have been found to accumulate in the brain as well as other organs such as the bone and the liver. There i

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