Steven W. Hetts1, Maythem Saeed1, Alastair J. Martin, Lee Evans2, Anthony F. Bernhardt2, Vincent Malba2, Fabio Settecase1, Loi Do1, Sammir Sullivan1, Mark W. Wilson<su
1Radiology, UCSF, San Francisco, CA, United States; 2Microelectronics, Lawrence Livermore National Lab, Livermore, CA, United States Endovascular navigation under MRI guidance can be facilitated by a catheter with electrical current carrying microcoils on the tip. Not only do the microcoils create a visible artifact to allow catheter tracking, but also they create a small magnetic moment that attempts to align with the strong B0 magnetic field of the MR scanner, thus permitting remote controlled catheter tip deflection. We determined through histologic analysis the upper boundary of electrical currents safely usable at 1.5T in a coil-tipped microcatheter in vivo in swine carotid arteries.