Axel Joachim Krafft1, Florian Maier1, Patrik Zamecnik, Andr de Oliveira1,2, Jrgen Walter Jenne3,4, Roger Jason Stafford5, Kamran Ahrar6, Axel Winkel7, Wolfhard Semmler1, Michael Bock1
1Medical Physics in Radiology, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany; 2Siemens AG, Erlangen, Germany; 3Clinical Cooperation Unit Radiation Oncology, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany; 4Mediri GmbH, Heidelberg, Germany; 5Imaging Physics, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA; 6Interventional Radiology, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA; 7Invivo Germany GmbH, Schwerin, Germany
The increasing complexity of MR-guided interventions demands high SNR and short image acquisition times. Therefore, a rising number of such procedures is performed in closed-bore MR scanners where patient access is severely restricted. Consequently, safe, accurate, and continuous instrument monitoring and guidance is a mandatory pre-requisite. A combination of an automatic passive tracking technique and a manually steerable instrument holder is proposed to meet the requirements of percutaneous interventions. The setup was tested during LITT as an advanced minimally invasive technique. Our experiments demonstrate the potential of this approach which is suitable for a wide range of interventional applications.