VISUALIZATION OF DEDICATED CATHETERS USING FAST SCANNING TECHNIQUES WITH POTENTIAL FOR MR-GUIDED VASCULAR INTERVENTIONS

This paper reports the development of dedicated catheters and real-tim e MR scan techniques for guiding vascular interventional procedures. B y way of phantom experiments, it is shown that proper modification of the magnetic properties of catheters allows their conspicuous and cons istent visualization in subsecond 2D gradient echo images and phase co ntrast angiograms. Dynamic scan times as low as 0.5 s could be achieve d by exploiting the keyhole technique and purposeful postprocessing. T he temporal resolution and spatial resolution of the resultant scan pr otocol shows promise for adequate tracking of catheter manipulation.