Jerome Yerly1,2, M Louis Lauzon2,3, Henry S. Chen2,4, Richard Frayne2,3
1Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada; 2Seaman Family MR Research Centre, Foothills Medical Centre, Calgary Health Region, Calgary, AB, Canada; 3Radiology and Clinical Neurosciences, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada; 4Physics and Astronomy, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada
Passive catheter MR imaging is a promising visualization technique applicable to endovascular procedures. It provides several clinical advantages compared to the current x-ray fluoroscopy gold standard. Regrettably, conventional MR fluoroscopy offers limited refresh rates at moderate-to-high spatial resolution, so k-space undersampling is usually required. Compressive sampling (CS) and projection-onto-convex sets (POCS) are two nonlinear reconstruction algorithms that can accurately reconstruct undersampled k-space datasets. We demonstrate that passive catheter tracking using multi-cycle projection dephasers (a background suppression technique) coupled with CS generates higher quality images compared to POCS, and is fast enough to permit real-time monitoring.