Published in:
Open Access
01-12-2015 | Poster presentation
Intra-cardiac MR imaging & MR-tracking catheter for improved MR-guided EP
Authors:
Yue Chen, Zion T Tse, Wei Wang, Raymond Y Kwong, William G Stevenson, Ehud J Schmidt
Published in:
Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance
|
Special Issue 1/2015
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Excerpt
Electrophysiology (EP) studies can diagnose & treat patients with arrhythmia. MR-guided EP is growing, driven by the ability of cardiac MRI to provide high-contrast images. For intra-procedural use, MRI provides images of the acute state of radio-frequency ablation (RFA) lesions, e.g. necrosis, edema and hemorrhage, that potentially reduce recurrences & complications [
1,
2]. Unfortunately, acquisition of these images using surface MRI coils, considering the high-spatial-resolution (~1x1x2mm
3) requirements, can be lengthy (scar~10 mins/scan, edema~12 mins/scan) [
3], severely increasing the duration of MR-guided procedures. As demonstrated in other body regions, e.g. endorectal MRI, and with other imaging modalities (Intra-Cardiac Echo), intracavitary probes provide increased Signal-to-Noise-Ratio (SNR), due to their proximity to the area of interest. An Intra-cardiac MR imaging (ICMRI) coil may provide substantially higher SNR, but a complete application must also provide accurate heart motion compensation [
4], in order to produce non-blurred images. We constructed an ICMRI catheter, with integrated imaging & positional-tracking elements, optimized for (1) cardiovascular introduction as a sheath "riding on" an EP ablation catheter & for (2) close-proximity imaging (~4 cm FOV) during RFA delivery. …