Kevan James Thompson Anderson1, Greig Scott2,
Graham A. Wright1,3
1Medical Biophysics,
University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; 2Electrical
Engineering, Stanford University, United States; 3Imaging Research,
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
A new active technique is described that utilizes phase information in the MR signal to determine the position and orientation of a catheter-based microcoil. Phase images acquired around a small receive coil are rich in information and can be collected over a large spherical volume with a diameter several times that of the receive coil. The high degree of redundancy yields the potential for an accurate and robust method of catheter tracking. A tracking algorithm is presented that performs catheter tip localization using phase images acquired in two orthogonal planes. Associated experimentation demonstrating feasibility is also presented.