Simultaneous Imaging and Catheter Tracking: More Robust Performance with Joint Use of All Data

Steve Kecskemeti¹, Ethan Brodsky¹, Walter Block¹, Orhan Unal¹

Current methods of catheter tracking [1] interrupt the imaging sequence at some predefined update rate to acquire several projections to determine the position of the catheter. We have a taken a different approach and have developed a robust method to extract the tracking data directly from the imaging data using an interleaved 3D radial (VIPR) k-space acquisition. The method presented in this abstract uses the information from all the projections within a VIPR interleaf to determine the catheter location. This results in a more robust prediction of the catheter location and reduces the perception of jitter in the catheter position.