Stabilized Temperature Mapping on a 0.

3-T Open MRI System

T. Takabashi,’ K. Komura,’ M. Dohi; J. Harada*
‘R&D Center, Hitachi Medical Corp., Chiba, Japan.
‘Dep. of Radiology, Tbe Jikei University School of Medicine, Kashiwa Hospital, Chiba, Japan

Introduction temperature shift of the materials used in the magnetic

Temperature mapping is used to monitor laser and RF ablation circuit. The three-point correction eliminated the distortion
processes, microwave therapy, and so on [l], and is usually done by and yielded the homogeneous temperature distribution
continually evaluating Tl weighted signal intensity, proton expected. Transaxial, sagittal and coronal temperature
frequency shift or a diffusion constant [2]. There are many reports maps were stabilized by using the correction.
of temperature mapping on medium-field and high-field
superconducting-magnet MRI systems 131,but a few of temperature Experimental results
mapping on low-field and medium-field open MRI systems. And A ham of 10 cm in diameter was heated by a laser fiber inserted to a
for permanent-magnet open MRI systems, there are only depth of 3 cm. The laser intensity was 5, 8, or 10 W/pulse. Each
preliminary reports relating changes in signal intensity change to pulse lasted 1 s and there was 1 s between pulses. The duration of
object temperature [4]. Here we report a temperature mapping the laser-pulse irradiation was 150 s. MR images ware acquired
technique that is based on proton frequency shift and is optimized continually during and after laser irradiation and temperature maps
for an open MRl system with a 0.3-T permanent magnet. ‘Ibis were obtained every 15 s.
technique uses image-based three-point-correction for successive Figure 2 shows a temperature map obtained during laser ablation.
temperature map in order to stabilize one. The temperature change during 5-W laser irradiation is displayed in
Fig. 3, which shows both the temperature increase during
Method irradiation and the temperature decrease after irradiation. The
A Hitachi AIRIS-II MRI system was modified for dynamic standard deviation of the temperature fluctuation after the cooling
temperature mapping by installing signal-processing and color- (from the 25th image to the 51st image) was 2.3 degree.
map-display software on its control workstation. The signal-
processing software provided complex image subtraction and Conclusions
transformation from a phase map to a temperature map. Temperature mapping based on proton frequency shift was
Tbe interimage signal fluctuation due to hardware instability was optimized for a 0.3-T permanent-magnet open MRI system, and an
reduced by using an image-based three-point-correction that image-based three-point-correction was used.
eliminated spatial 1St-order fluctuation and offset fluctuation.
The true temperature change AT,,,(x,y) was obtained by using the References
measured temperature AT,&x, y) and a fluctuation component [I] R Steiner et aI., Radiology, vol. ZOS, pp. 803-810, 1998.
AL&~ Y) : [2] H.E. Cline et al., 4th ISMRM, p. 1754,1996.
[3] Y. Ishihara et al., 11th SMRM, p. 4803,1992.
4,,, (KY) = AT,,,& Y) - ATnuct(x,Y) (1) [4] 7: J. Russer et al., 5th ISMRM, p. 1958,1997.
The AT&x, y) distribution, defined in Eq. (2) was obtained from
the temperature measured at least three points that were not heated : .
AT,,,, (x, Y) = ax + by + c, (2)
where a, b and c are constants. Tbe three reference points on a
reference image were selected by an operator before the mapping,
and the ATDuct(x, y) value was updated continually during the
mapping. Thus the measured temperatures could be successively
corrected using updated AT&x, y) values and a corrected _-_
17n
temperature color map could be displayed in real time. (a) without correction (b) with correction
We acquired temperature images using a gradient echo Fig. 1. Temparature distribution of a water phantom.
sequence ( TR/TE = 80 ms/30 ms, flip angle = 60 degree,
FOV = 200x200 mm, slice thickness = 8 mm, matrix size =
ham
128x128, data acquisition = 1, and imaging time = 10.2 s).
Fig. 2. laser fiber
This sequence is almost same as the one for temperature
mapping using the change in signal intensity on a 0.3-T Temperature map
MRI system [4]. Long TR of the sequence, results in a during laser ablation.
better signal-to-noise ratio. And because of long TE, the
phase change due to proton frequency shift becomes larger.
This compensates the smaller phase change due to the - 30.0
resonance frequency in 0.3-T MRI being lower than that in e25.0
MRI at 0.5T-1.5T. Figure 1 shows examples of corrected %
G 20.0
and uncorrected temperature distributions of a water 2
o 15.0
phantom that was not heated. These distributions were E
generated from 51 successive images obtained over 12 min. 2B 10.0
As shown in Fig. l(a), before the three-point-correction the g 5.0
images were distorted. The distortion varied image-by- g 0.0
image because of hardware condition, such as the 0 10 20 30 40 50 60
image number
Fig. 3. Temperature change during and after laser ablation.

Proc. Intl. Sot. Mag. Reson. Med. 8 (2000) 1339