Abstract #1600

Cardiac Catheter Ablation Under Real Time MR Guidance: Initial Clinical Application

Peter Nordbeck¹,², Meinrad Beer³, Marcus Wamuth¹, Daniel Gensler², Theresa Reiter¹, Herbert Kstler³, Thomas Pabst³, Peter M. Jakob², Mark E. Ladd⁴, Harald H. Quick⁵, Wolfgang R. Bauer¹, Oliver Ritter¹

¹Internal Medicine I - Cardiology, University Hospital Wuerzburg, Wuerzburg, Germany; ²Experimental Physics V, University of Wuerzburg, Wuerzburg, Germany; ³Radiology, University Hospital Wuerzburg, Wuerzburg, Germany; ⁴Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany; ⁵Medical Physics, University Erlangen-Nuernberg, Erlangen, Germany

Interventional electrophysiology (EP) for diagnosis and treatment of cardiac arrhythmia is currently performed under fluoroscopic guidance, which offers poor tissue contrast and limited feedback on therapy efficacy or complications. MR guided EP has the potential to solve many of these problems, but is technically challenging and accompanied by specific additional patient risks due to the technical equipment needed in the scanner room. Our group developed an EP setup for diagnosis and therapy of arrhythmia under real time MR guidance. The results from the first clinical applications in two patients with arrhythmia resistant to conventional therapy are presented.