MR-assisted bile duct drainage: a study of passive catheter visualization in an animal model.

Purpose: To investigate interactive MR-assisted bile duct drainage in pigs with the passive visualization technique using near real-time imaging, Meth ods: 8 bile duct drainages were placed in an open low-field MR system (0.2 Tesla) in 4 pigs with surgically induced cholestasis. After planning the in tervention with magnetic resonance cholangiography (MRC), both the puncture and catheter placement were interactively guided using a fast T-2-weighted true FISP sequence. Results: MRC enabled interventional planning in all pu ncture attempts. Punctures were unproblematic in all attempts, the bile duc ts were punctured 6 times after the first and twice after the second attemp t. Placement of the passively visible catheter was successful in all animal s. The applied sequence enables interactive fluoroscopy-like positioning of the devices. Conclusion: The procedure introduced here enables reliable an d fast placement of a bile duct drainage in an animal model using a low-fie ld MR system.