Recent research at the University of California, San Francisco, has developed a tool that can navigate through blood vessels from the groin to the brain in search for blood clots using MRI-guided navigation. Known as the MARC catheter, it promises huge potential in the treatment of stroke and diseases under MRI guidance, and it is more efficient and expedient than its predecessors.
Because MRI is more useful than an x-ray when brain tissue is concerned, this steerable MRI-guided catheter could portend a huge development is stroke treatment.
According to UCSF, “The MARC – or magnetically assisted remove-controlled – catheter is based on a commercially available catheter, but made with nonmetallic fibers. There are microcoils embedded on the tip of catheter. By running a small electrical current a strong magnetic field on the tip of the catheter is created. That tip interacts with the strong magnetic field of the scanner, so we can steer through the body with remote control. The MRI guidance was done with a 1.5-tesla scanner.
This tool was easy to visualize under real-time MRI during the tests, as shown by research presented at last year’s Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery conference. Under magnetically assisted guidance, 192 of 240 turns (80 percent) were completed successfully, compared with 144 of 240 turns (60 percent) using standard x-ray guidance. Further, previous technologies for navigating under MRI are much slower rendering them more or less useless in clinical practice. The MARC catheter moved through blood vessels with a speed of 37 seconds per turn, compared to 55 seconds per turn of the conventional catheter- the manually directed catheter under MRI guidance.”
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