Tracking Planar Orientations of Active Interventional Devices for Realtime Image Guided Procedures

S. Sathyanarayana, P. Aksit, A. Arepally, P. Karmarkar, M. Solaiyappan, E. Atalar Electrical and Computer Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, United States, Global Applied Science Laboratory, GE Healthcare, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States, Radiology, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutes, Baltimore, Maryland, United States, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Bilkent University, Bilkent, Ankara, Turkey Introduction: Tracking and visualization of interventional devices, such as catheters, is essential for guiding real-time MR procedures. Methods exist for tracking portions of the catheter using localizing RF coils [1], visualizing the entire length using active catheter antennas [2], and combining catheter views with anatomical images to aid in visualization [3]. Embedding microcoils on catheters, however, constrains their geometry and does not provide enough localizing information in procedures that require tracking of multiple points. Active antennas and viewing software help in visualizing the interventional device but there is no direct method to track the plane of the catheter and view its entire length in real-time without using localizing coils. We describe a method that determines the plane of the interventional device, using projection images, without the use of RF microcoils. Once identified, we can drive the scanner to be in-plane, orthogonal, or any orientation, with respect to the device. We demonstrate the method in an MR-guided creation of a mesocaval shunt performed in-vivo using an active intravascular needle system.