Automatic Scan-Plane Prescription by Optical Instrument Tracking: Proof of Concept in a Closed-Bore MRI

Harald Busse¹, Nikita Garnov¹, Gregor Thrmer¹, Thomas Kahn¹, Michael Moche¹

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.