The Hospital for Sick Children

Sunnybrook Research Institute

Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

Venkat R Swaminathan

Graham Arnold Wright

Christopher MacGowan

Haydar Celik

Christopher Wernik

Graham A Wright

Described here are systems and methods for visualizing thermal ablation lesions by imaging specific chemical compounds that are created during thermal ablation procedures, such as cardiac ablation procedures. When a cardiac ablation procedure is performed, a central area of coagulative necrosis is created at the treatment site. This necrotic region is surrounded by layers of tissues with ultra-structural and electrophysiological changes. Two particular changes include the denaturation of proteins and the formation of ferric iron containing chemical compounds, such as methemoglobin and metmyoglobin. The formation of and distribution of such chemical compounds can be imaged with the appropriate systems and methods. Accordingly, these chemical compounds can be utilized as biomarkers that indicate the presence and physical characteristics of thermal ablation lesions. Imaging can be performed using magnetic resonance imaging, optical imaging, or photoacoustic imaging, as examples.

System and method for imaging biomarkers indicative of cardiac thermal ablation lesions

A method and system for determination of oxygen saturation in blood flowing in a vessel using magnetic resonance (MR). An MR image sequence is acquired with different echo time (TE) encoding, and different Fourier velocity encoding (FVE). A Fourier transformation is applied along the velocity dimension to determine a velocity distribution of tissue signals in each voxel of the image sequence. Tissue signals indicative of moving tissues are separated from tissue signals indicative of static tissue, based on the velocity distribution. Oxygen saturation in blood may then be determined using only the tissue signals indicative of flowing blood.

Magnetic resonance-based method and system for determination of oxygen saturation in flowing blood

Growing community of inventors

Toronto, Canada

Venkat R Swaminathan