US 2001/0018558 A1Published application

MR fluoroscopy method and apparatus

AssigneeHitachi Medical Corporation

InventorsKatsunori Suzuki, Shigeru Sato

Life of this patent

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Abstract

Imaging and image reconstruction are sequentially performed for slices of a subject, and realtime images of the slices are displayed substantially at the same time. The slices may be perpendicular or parallel to one another, or they may form a stereoscopic pair. The images may be displayed two-dimensionally, or they may be combined and displayed three-dimensionally. One of the slices includes an insertion (a needle) for puncture or biopsy that is inserted into the subject by an operator, and it is parallel with a direction in which the insertion should advance. If the needle is displaced from the slice and a shade of the needle disappears from the sequentially-displayed images of the slice while the operator moves the needle toward an affected part in the subject in IVR, the shade of the needle appears on the sequentially-displayed images of another slice that is perpendicularly intersecting to or is adjacent and parallel to the above-mentioned slice. Hence, the operator can always determine the position and advancing direction of the needle.

Claims15

Dependent claims

A magnetic resonance fluoroscopic imaging apparatus, comprising:

a static magnetic field generator which generates a static magnetic field;
a radio frequency magnetic field generator which generates a radio frequency magnetic field to excite nuclei in a plurality of slices of a subject placed within the static magnetic field;
a gradient magnetic field generator which generates a slice direction gradient magnetic field, a phase encoding gradient magnetic field and a frequency encoding gradient magnetic field;
a signal detector which detects nuclear magnetic resonance signals emitted from the nuclei;
a signal processor which reconstructs images of the plurality of slices from the nuclear magnetic resonance signals;
a display which displays the images;
and
a controller which controls the radio frequency magnetic field generator, the gradient magnetic field generator and the signal processor, the controller performing an imaging process to sequentially image the plurality of slices by exciting the nuclei, by detecting the nuclear magnetic resonance signals and by reconstructing images of the plurality of slices, the controller successively repeating the imaging process to acquire a plurality of successive images of each of the plurality of slices, the controller successively displaying, on the display, sets of the images of the plurality of slices substantially simultaneously acquired.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 09/814,804Filed 23 Mar 2001
Priority: JP 9-19546622 Jul 1997
Published: 30 Aug 2001
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification8 codes

G01R 33/4835
Using spatially selective excitation of the volume of interest, e.g. selecting non-orthogonal or inclined slices: of multiple slices
H04N 13/211
Using a single two-dimensional [2D] image sensor: using temporal multiplexing
H04N 13/221
Using a single two-dimensional [2D] image sensor: using the relative movement between cameras and objects
H04N 13/395
Volumetric displays, i.e. systems where the image is built up from picture elements distributed through a volume: with depth sampling, i.e. the…