Wilfred W. Lam1, Charles H. Cunningham1,2
1Imaging Research, Sunnybrook Health
Sciences Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; 2Dept. of Medical
Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
One
challenge in the placement of guidewires has been tracking the devices as
they are moved within the body. In MR
imaging, the marker is a material with a sufficiently large magnetic
susceptibility relative to tissue that creates a hypointense region in the
surrounding tissue. However, the
resulting black hole obscures the region that must be seen. A device is presented which can create a
susceptibility marker that can be mechanically turned on and off. Hypointensity in an image of water ahead of
the device was only evident when the device was configured to create the
marker.