Regulators in both the U.K. and in France have issued recalls for certain gadolinium-based contrast agents for MRI, complying with an order issued last year from the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
The U.K.'s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and France's National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products (ANSM) have sent out recall notices for linear gadolinium agents gadodiamide (Omniscan, GE Healthcare) and intravenous gadopentetic acid (Magnevist, Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals). The agents no longer have marketing authorization in the European Union (EU), and other EU countries are expected to follow this lead.
The regulatory bodies' actions follow a safety review last year of gadolinium contrast media conducted by the EMA, which raised concerns over the retention of residual gadolinium in patients who received MRI contrast.
