Tavallaei, M.A.; Thakur, Y.; Haider, S.; Drangova, M.
Volume: 60, Issue: 4, Page: 899-905
Catheterization is the procedure of introducing a long and flexible tube called a catheter in to the vasculature and guiding to desired target locations. The catheter may be used for interventional or diagnostic purposes such as ablation or measuring electrical activity. Cardiac catheterization has become an essential tool in the management of cardiac and vascular diseases, in general, and the treatment of cardiac arrhythmias, in particular. The conventional imaging modality to guide the catheterization procedure is fluoroscopy. However, fluoroscopically guided catheterization provides two-dimensional projections of the anatomical site and is limited by low soft tissue contrast, making interpretation of the complex three-dimensional (3D) anatomy difficult. Furthermore, fluoroscopy-guided catheterization exposes both patients and staff to radiation. On the contrary, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) provides 3D anatomical images with high soft tissue contrast and is safe. One of the barriers of using MRI to guide a catheterization procedure is that the magnet bore of conventional MRI scanners surround the patient and impedes the surgeon’s access to the patient. The developments presented in this paper aim to facilitate MRI guided catheterization by allowing the interventionalist to perform the catheter navigation from a location remote to the MRI scanner. The proposed system allows the surgeon to manipulate a master input catheter at the MRI console while the MRI compatible robot replicates the input motions on a patient catheter inside the magnet bore. Our paper illustrates the accuracy and robustness of the proposed master-slave system during image acquisition and evaluates the effects of the proposed system on MR image quality. Our results show that the proposed system is MRI compatible. Further in vivo trials will need to be performed to show the system’s safety and feasibility. Read More…