Registering Real Time and Prior Image Data for MR Guided Interventions

Robert Sheng Xu¹, Graham Wright¹

Minimally invasive cardiac surgeries often require the manipulation of an interventional catheter under imaging guidance. The latter provides a visual roadmap for targeting of a diseased region, and simultaneously tracks the anatomic position of the interventional device. MRI is a suitable modality for performing this visual guidance, as it provides excellent soft tissue contrast for depicting the cardiac structures. However, tradeoffs exist between fast acquisition times and overall image quality. In this research, a multi-scale approach is proposed to register fast real-time images and previously acquired high quality MR volumes to help improve the accuracy of MR guided procedures.