Harald Busse1, Nikita Garnov1, Gregor Thrmer1, Thomas Kahn1, Michael Moche1
1Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology Department, Leipzig University Hospital, Leipzig, Germany
MR fluoroscopy allows the radiologist to guide and control percutaneous interventions in the magnet of wide-bore and open scanners. This work presents an automatic scan-plane prescription that relies on a flexible optical instrument tracking. It involves a real-time pulse sequence with a proper interface for numerical scan control and a special marker-based registration scheme. The technique overcomes typical line-of-sight problems of other approaches and can be flexibly added to virtually any scanner environment. Successful implementation and experimental target approaches with subsecond image updates are demonstrated for the worst-case scenario of a long and narrow cylindrical scanner.