Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) has several unique advantages for guiding thermal ablation therapies. It not only provides excellent soft-tissue contrast and multiplanar capabilities, but also is sensitive to thermal effects.

To make full use of these advantages for thermal ablation procedures, we are working on an integrated solution for a thermal therapy workflow that combines dedicated MRI pulse sequences and image processing methods for trajectory planning, automatic slice positioning, and enhanced thermal mapping.

The project is being undertaken in close collaboration with Siemens' Center for Applied Medical Imaging (CAMI) at the Johns Hopkins Institutions Baltimore (MD), USA, and can be divided into two main parts: