Real-time MR-thermometry for interventional MRI at low field in moving organs

热消融疗法通常用于治疗肿瘤和心律失常。磁共振成像（MRI）是一种有吸引力的成像方式，以指导这些程序，因为它提供了良好的软组织对比度和无电离辐射。此外，MRI能够在消融过程中连续监测组织温度，这可用于预测消融损伤的程度并提高手术安全性。MRI引导的热疗法目前正在使用标准的临床MRI扫描仪进行，该扫描仪使用强磁场强度。然而，这种高场强MRI扫描仪的使用增加了与加热装置相关的约束和图像伪影以及手术成本。因此，建立在现代硬件/软件技术上的低场MRI扫描仪的出现代表了解决上述限制的有希望的途径。目前，用于运动器官中的低场MRI的临床可行的MR温度测量方法仍有待证明。尽管已经证明了通过MRI在低场进行实时温度监测的可行性，但是这些方法与重要的局限性相关联，包括它们不能提供确定消融损伤的范围所需的体积温度信息，并且不能校正生理运动，从而阻止它们在运动器官中的应用。我们建议开发和评估一种新的临床上可行的实时MR温度测量框架，用于运动器官中的低场MRI引导的热消融治疗。

Thermal ablation therapies are commonly used for the treatment of tumours and cardiac arrhythmias. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is an attractive imaging modality to guide these procedures as it provides excellent soft-tissue contrast and no ionizing radiation. Furthermore, MRI enables continuous monitoring of tissue temperature during the ablation process, which can be used to predict the extent of ablation lesions and improve the procedure safety.MRI-guided thermal therapies are currently being performed using standard clinical MRI scanners which use a strong magnetic field strength. However, the use of such high field strength MRI scanner increases constraints and image artifacts related to the heating devices as well as procedure cost. Therefore, the emergence of a low field MRI scanner built on modern hardware/software technologies represents a promising avenue to address the aforementioned limitations.Currently, a clinically feasible MR-thermometry method for low field MRI in moving organs remains still to be demonstrated. Although the feasibility of real-time temperature monitoring by MRI at low field has been demonstrated, these methods are associated with important limitations, including their inability to provide volumetric temperature information needed to characterise the extent of ablation lesions, and no correction of physiological motion preventing their application in moving organs.In this project, we propose to develop and evaluate a novel clinically feasible real-time MR-thermometry framework for low field MRI-guided thermal ablation therapies in moving organs.