Peter Nordbeck1, 2, Meinrad Beer3, Marcus Wamuth1, Daniel Gensler2, Theresa Reiter1, Herbert Kstler3, Thomas Pabst3, Peter M. Jakob2, Mark E. Ladd4, Harald H. Quick5, Wolfgang R. Bauer1, Oliver Ritter1
1Internal Medicine I - Cardiology, University Hospital Wuerzburg, Wuerzburg, Germany; 2Experimental Physics V, University of Wuerzburg, Wuerzburg, Germany; 3Radiology, University Hospital Wuerzburg, Wuerzburg, Germany; 4Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany; 5Medical Physics, University Erlangen-Nuernberg, Erlangen, Germany
Interventional electrophysiology (EP) for diagnosis and treatment of cardiac arrhythmia is currently performed under fluoroscopic guidance, which offers poor tissue contrast and limited feedback on therapy efficacy or complications. MR guided EP has the potential to solve many of these problems, but is technically challenging and accompanied by specific additional patient risks due to the technical equipment needed in the scanner room. Our group developed an EP setup for diagnosis and therapy of arrhythmia under real time MR guidance. The results from the first clinical applications in two patients with arrhythmia resistant to conventional therapy are presented.