Method for graphically following a movement of a medical instrument introduced into an object under examination

A method for graphically following a movement of a medical instrument at least partly introduced into an object under examination, comprising:

• penetrating an examination area of the object with an x-ray beam, wherein the x-ray beam comprises a beam center axis extending in a projection direction and is delimited by a beam delimiting surface;
• detecting a two-dimensional projection data set of the examination area from the x-ray beam;
• guiding the movement of the medical instrument introduced into the examination area with the projection data set;
• determining a three-dimensional image data set of the examination area comprising a part of the medical instrument introduced into the examination area based on the two-dimensional projection data set by an image reconstruction method;
• and
• graphically displaying the three-dimensional image data set,
• wherein a plurality of three-dimensional image data sets comprising the part of the medical instrument introduced into the examination area are successively determined at an image determination rate and the image determination rate is selected such that the movement of the medical instrument can be followed.

An apparatus for graphically following a movement of a medical instrument at least partly introduced into an object under examination, comprising:

• an x-ray source that emits an x-ray beam, wherein the x-ray beam comprises a beam center axis extending in a projection direction and is delimited by a beam delimiting surface;
• an x-ray detector that detects a two-dimensional projection data set of an examination area of the object;
• a focusing device arranged between the x-ray source and the x-ray detector that focus and restricts the x-ray beam into an x-ray beam component penetrating the examination area of the object;
• a data processing unit that determines a three-dimensional image data set of the examination area comprising a part of the medical instrument introduced into the examination area based on the two-dimensional projection data set;
• and
• a display unit that displays the three-dimensional image data set of the examination area,
• wherein a plurality of three-dimensional image data sets of the examination area comprising the part of the medical instrument introduced into the examination area are successively determined at an image determination rate and the image determination rate is selected such that the movement of the medical instrument can be followed.