An MRI-compatible defibrillator: initial testing in volunteers and swine

Background Performing MRI-guided interventions, such as for the treatment of ventricular tachycardia, requires the ability to rapidly detect and treat acute cardiac conditions, should they occur in the MRI. We developed MRI-compatible 12lead ECG systems, and demonstrated detection of acute ischemia during imaging [Tse, MRM. ‘13,Zhang, MRM. ‘15 ], providing a tool to non-invasively detect cardiac events in the MRI. It is presently necessary to remove patients from the MRI to treat cardiac events. This increases risk, consequently restricting MRI imaging, as well as MRI-guided intervention, to lower-risk patients and lower-risk procedures. Defibrillation in the bore could, therefore, accelerate the growth of diagnostic (such as exercise stress-perfusion and acute post-infarct studies) and therapeutic MRI studies. The study objective is to develop a defibrillation system that can safely be used on patients inside a 1.5 Tesla MRI. In addition, this system should not compromise MRI image quality.