Methods for providing probe position and temperature information on MR images during interventional procedures

Interventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can be defined as the use of MR images for guiding and monitoring interventional procedures (e.g., biopsy, drainage) or minimally invasive therapy (e.g., thermal ablation). This work describes the development of a prototype graphical user interface and the appropriate software methods to accurately overlay a representation of a rigid interventional device [e.g., biopsy needle, radio-frequency (RF) probe] onto an MR image given only the probe's spatial position and orientation as determined from a three-dimensional (3-D) localizer used for interactive scan plane definition. This permits 1) "virtual tip tracking," where the probe tip location is displayed on the image without the use of separate receiver coils or a "road map" image data set, and, 2) "extending" the probe to predict its path if it were directly moved forward toward the target tissue. Further, this paper describes the design and implementation of a method to facilitate the monitoring of thermal ablation procedures by displaying and overlaying temperature maps from temperature sensitive MR acquisitions. These methods provide rapid graphical updates of probe position and temperature changes to aid the physician during the actual interventional MRI procedures without altering the usual operation of the MR imager.