Ehud J. Schmidt1, Lei Qin1, Juan
Santos2, Gregory F. Michaud3, Raymond K. Kwong3,
Kim Butts-Pauly4, William G. Stevenson3, Charles L.
Dumoulin5
1Radiology, Brigham & Womens
Hospital, Boston, MA, United States; 2CardioVista Inc., Palo Alto,
CA, United States; 3Cardiology, Brigham & Womens Hospital,
Boston, MA, United States; 4Radiology, Stanford University, Palo
Alto, CA, United States; 5Radiology, Cincinatti Childrens Hospital,
Cincinatti, OH, United States
A novel 2nd generation intra-cardiac MRI (ICMRI) catheter was developed. This catheter incorporates a 4-microcoil mr-tracking array and a loop coil. All components are placed on a plastic mesh which is maintained folded and can be expanded using a push-pull mechanism to full size, where the tracking array becomes tetrahedral in shape, allowing for accurate detection of position/orientation and the loop coil is extended to 2-cm diameter. The catheter has a 3-mm lumen, so it can be used mounted an electro-physiology radio-frequency ablation catheter. The SNR of the catheter and its use in a swine heart are demonstrated.