Automated tracking of a passive intramyocardial needle with off-resonance MRI: a feasibility study

Direct intramyocardial therapies aimed at treating myocardial regions affected by severe ischemia may benefit from CMR-guided interventional procedures. Although interventional MR approaches using active devices are considered to be the method of choice, potential tissue heating and altered mechanical properties are some of their limitations. Methods that have the capacity to visualize MR-compatible passive devices may overcome many of these obstacles. Recently, an off-resonance-based real-time positive contrast method (FLAPS) was used to visualize the passage of an intramyocardial needle (PIN) through the aorta and into the heart of swine [1,2]. We envision this procedure may benefit from computer assisted strategies that track the needle's location throughout the MR procedure. However, the feasibility of real-time automated tracking of a PIN has not been established

Automated tracking of a passive endomyocardial stiletto catheter with dephased FLAPS MRI: a feasibility study

Automated tracking of a passive stiletto catheter for regenerative myocardial therapy under the MR environment may improve the accuracy ofthe procedure. We report successful implementation of automated computer-assisted tracking for this purpose in a controlled phantom study