Daniel Gensler1, Florian Fidler1, Philipp Ehses1, Marcus Warmuth2, Theresa Reiter2, Markus Dring3, 4, Oliver Ritter2, Mark E. Ladd5, Harald H. Quick6, Peter M. Jakob1, 3, Wolfgang R. Bauer2, Peter Nordbeck2
1Research Center Magnetic-Resonance-Bavaria, Wrzburg, Germany; 2Department of Internal Medicine I - Cardiology, University Hospital Wrzburg, Wrzburg, Germany; 3Experimental Physics 5, University Wrzburg, Wrzburg, Germany; 4Noras MRI Products GmbH, Hchberg, Germany; 5Erwin L. Hahn Institute for Magnetic Resonance Imaging, University Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany; 6Institute for Medical Physics, University Erlangen-Nrnberg, Erlangen, Germany
Determining the MR compatibility of medical implants is becoming increasingly relevant. In most cases, the RF-heating of implants is measured by fluoroptic probes, but these can only measure the temperature at a single point. Another method to determine heating effects is MR-thermometry using the PRFS which gives good results in homogeneous phantoms. However, in several cases the inhomogeneity of organic tissue and susceptibility changes near an implant prohibits PRFS-thermometry. The intention of this work was to develop a fast T1-based thermometry method which allows controlled MR-related heating of a medical implant while simultaneously quantifying the spatial and temporal temperature distribution.