Safe and Rapid 3D Imaging: Upgrade of a Human-Sized Brain MPI System

Magnetic Particle Imaging hardware has reached human scale and thus patient safety questions and clinical application scenarios are in the focus of current research. In this work, we present a safe real-time 3D MPI system for cerebral applications. High voltages are avoided to ensure patient safety by a low voltage-high current transmit coil design. The developed 2D drive-field generator generates a field-free-point trajectory in the sagittal xz-plane that is shifted with low frequency by a dynamic selection-field sequence along the y-axis. The scanner generates 3D images with 4 frames/second and allows for direct visualization of the clinically preferred transversal yz-plane, which is crucial for future brain examinations. Advanced reconstruction techniques reach a system sensitivity of 4 µgFe with respect to the iron mass in a sensitivity study.