INTEGRATED AND INTERACTIVE POSITION TRACKING AND IMAGING OF INTERVENTIONAL TOOLS AND INTERNAL DEVICES USING SMALL FIDUCIAL RECEIVER COILS

A method is described of tracking the position of a rigid device withi n an MR scanner and imaging with the image slice position determined b y the current position of the device, such that the manipulation of th e device can be achieved in a robust, interactive manner. The device c an be either external or internal to the patient. The position trackin g is performed by means of two or three small MR receiver coils attach ed to individual receiver channels. Each coil contains a small sample that acts as a fiducial (MR-visible marker point). The imaging is perf ormed by any suitable receiver coil attached to a further receive chan nel. This method has a large number of applications, both in the field of MR-guided procedures and in MR imaging using endocavitary coils. I n particular, two devices are described, the first being a device for MR-guided biopsies and the second being one for dynamic endorectal ima ging of the anal sphincter.