MR Tracking Booster – Localisation of minimally invasive instruments via magnetic resonance tomography

Nowadays surgical procedures are being increasingly performed in a minimally invasive manner. Since the surgeon cannot look into the operating site directly in this case, there is also an increasing need for appropriate methods for localising the instrument used (e.g. endoscope, catheter). Computed tomography subjects patients to a high radiation exposure, which is why magnetic resonance tomography (MRT) is the preferred option. However, in the case of MRT the instruments are often difficult to localise because of weak NMR signals.

Conventional methods of detecting these objects using passive markers are too imprecise – not least because of image artefacts. Therefore, there have been attempts to mark instruments with resonant circuits. These approaches work satisfactorily under idealised laboratory conditions. However, this is not the case in practice, since electrically conductive body fluids greatly impair the quality of the resonant circuits and therefore the intensity of the MRT image signal. This applies in particular to moving fluids such as blood, which additionally blur the marker signal because of their turbulence.

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