Summary
This poster investigates the technical feasibility of MRI-guided right and left heart catheterization, inferior vena cava (IVC) angioplasty, and IVC stenting using a commercially available 0.55T MRI system (MAGNETOM Free.Max) with constrained gradient amplitude and slew rate. Real-time interventional guidance was achieved using spoiled gradient echo sequences optimized to balance temporal and spatial resolution under low-field, low-gradient conditions, with parallel imaging (GRAPPA) employed to maintain frame rates suitable for device navigation. Trade-offs between frame rate and spatial resolution were systematically evaluated to determine optimal imaging parameters for catheter manipulation and stent deployment. Device conspicuity relied on passive MR-visible marker technology (MagnaFy) and blood pool signal enhancement with ferumoxytol, with 2 mg/kg providing superior visualization of catheters, balloons, markers, and deployed stents. Marker size and positioning significantly affected visibility, with larger markers and tip-mounted configurations outperforming smaller or shoulder-mounted markers. From a materials standpoint, 316L stainless steel stents demonstrated acceptable artifact profiles and allowed assessment of wall apposition, whereas platinum–iridium stents produced severe susceptibility artifact that limited interpretability. From a software and workflow perspective, the study demonstrates that existing vendor-provided real-time imaging, reconstruction, and parallel imaging software—without custom pulse sequence development—can support MRI-guided cardiovascular interventions at low field strength. However, performance was highly dependent on sequence parameter selection, reconstruction acceleration, and contrast strategy, underscoring current software limitations in temporal resolution, artifact management, and device visualization for complex interventional tasks.