Applications of high magnetic field in interventional medical treatment

Abstract

High magnetic field technology is increasingly used in interventional therapy. The strong magnetic field-involved intervention technology is a large-scale, integrated medical technology in which an in vitro, variable magnetic field is used to remotely control a magnetic substance (a drug, a catheter, or a stent, etc.) located in the body to realize interventional treatment. Through this technology, accurate targeted drug delivery and rapid positioning therapy can be achieved, which brings great convenience to the treatment and also improves the treatment efficiency and accuracy. The cardiac interventional magnetic navigation system for cardiovascular treatment is such a new type of interventional navigation system that has emerged in recent years. Through the remote-control manipulation technique guided by the external magnetic field, it can completely avoid the severe serious complications such as cardiac perforation caused by the traditional manual operation, shortening the training cycle and reducing the X-ray radiation to doctors and patients. This technology can further realize remote interventional treatment through the Internet system and expert system. Due to its intrinsic high magnetic performance, the magnetic nanoparticles can be directly used as drug delivery system under high magnetic field, and also as negative contrast of MRI. Combining with the ingenious nanostructures such as core-shell structure, the dual contrast of MRI and other iconography method can be successfully developed. In this paper, some latest research results of dual T1-T2 contrast of MRI and dual contrast of MRI and PET/SPECT have been reviewed. Moreover, the MRI-guided intervention technique has aroused comprehensive attention in the image-guided intervention scope. The corresponding methods can be roughly divided into following aspects: (a) MRI non-compatible intervention, which places the operation apparatus in a region far away from the MRI system and then the patient can be transferred to the imaging area; (b) MRI-compatible intervention, which applied compatible materials to fabricate the operation apparatus and actuator device; (c) MRI-powered intervention, which uses gradient field or RF field-actuated apparatus to realize automatic operation.