Many young children undergoing MRI in Germany still require sedation or general anesthesia to complete the examination successfully, carrying clinical risks, straining hospital resources, and creating long waits for families, according to a press release from the German Society for Neuroradiology, based on a project from Mainz University Medical Center.
The university medical center has applied to the Innovation Fund of the Federal Joint Committee to roll out a new care model called KidsMRI, designed to make MRI exams possible for children from around age four without general anesthesia.
"Our goal is to make the MRI exam as stress-free as possible for children, without anesthesia and as close to home as possible," said Dr. Ahmed Othman, managing senior physician for radiology and neuroradiology at Mainz University Medical Center, who leads the project.
"To do this, we're combining medical, educational, and technical approaches into a new care concept," added Dr. Haidara Al Mansour, a radiology specialist at the center and the project's deputy lead.
Examination environment for shorter scan times
As part of the KidsMRI project, children are to be introduced to the examination using age-appropriate training and support concepts, with the aim of enabling MRI scans to be performed more often without anesthesia in the future.Courtesy of University Medical Center Mainz
Having already secured funding for a concept-development phase from the Innovation Fund of the Federal Joint Committee, the team has now submitted a full application, with a decision expected by November 2026.
If approved, a larger study involving around 500 children would test the model's diagnostic quality, the burden on children and parents, health-economic factors, and practical feasibility across both clinical and outpatient settings.
The project is coordinated by the university medical center Mainz with a broad consortium of radiology providers, scientific partners in biometrics, psychology and education, statutory health insurers, and patient representatives, with the German Roentgen Society and the German Society for Neuroradiology providing professional input.
Why so many children still need anesthesia for MRI
Magnetic resonance imaging is considered an especially gentle diagnostic tool because it avoids ionizing radiation altogether, making it well-suited in principle for children.
Movement during an MRI examination can significantly impair image quality (top). Through suitable preparation measures and modern examination techniques, diagnostically high-quality images are intended to be achieved without anesthesia as well (bottom).Courtesy of University Medical Center Mainz
In practice, however, it poses a central challenge: producing diagnostically useful images requires patients to lie completely still for an extended period, often lasting between 20 and 60 minutes depending on the protocol, something many younger children, typically up to around age eight, struggle to do.
As a result, MRI exams are still frequently performed under general anesthesia, which carries medical risks for young patients and represents a significant psychological and logistical burden for families.
More scope for outpatient, local diagnostics
That reliance also strains the wider care system. Because anesthesia requires dedicated capacity, anesthesiology staff, fasting protocols, monitoring, and recovery space, many pediatric MRI exams currently take place predominantly in inpatient hospital settings rather than outpatient practices.
Ambulatory options remain rare, which limits availability, increases resource demands, and often leads to longer waiting times than for non-sedated exams, a burden felt most acutely by children with chronic conditions who depend on repeated imaging.
It is this combination of preparation, psychological support, and faster imaging that KidsMRI is now seeking to establish as a structured, reimbursable model within routine German care, playful preparation, child-appropriate accompaniment, and accelerated imaging sequences, with the explicit aim of reducing burden on children and families while creating more scope for outpatient, local diagnostics.
