A concept for a magnetic particle imaging scanner with Halbach arrays.

Magnetic particle imaging (MPI) is a new medical imaging technique visualizing the concentration distribution of superparamagnetic nanoparticles used as tracer material. MPI is not yet in clinical routine, since one of the challenges is the upscaling of scanners. Typically, the magnetic fields of MPI scanners are generated electromagnetically, resulting in an immense power consumption but providing high flexibility in terms of adjusting the field strengths and very fast image acquisition rates. Permanent magnets provide high flux densities and do not need any power supply. However, the flux density is not adjustable, and a mechanical movement is slow compared to electromagnetically varying fields. The MPI scanner concept proposed here uses permanent magnets and provides high flexibility, with the possibility to choose between fast overview scanning and detailed image acquisition. By mechanical rotation of magnetic rings in Halbach array configuration, it is possible to adjust the field or gradient strengths. The latter allows for determining the spatial resolution and the size of the field of view. A continuous mechanical rotation defines the coarseness of the scanning trajectory and image acquisition rate. This concept provides a comparable flexibility, as an alternating magnetic field and an adjustable field gradient can be applied as known from electromagnetically driven MPI systems, and therefore yields high potential for an enlarged system. We present the idea of an arrangement of Halbach arrays and how to calculate the generated magnetic fields. Simulations for an exemplary geometry are provided to show the potential of the proposed setup.

Using data redundancy gained by patch overlaps to reduce truncation artifacts in magnetic particle imaging.

The imaging technology magnetic particle imaging allows the detection of magnetic material, in particular superparamagnetic nanoparticles, by remagnetization of the material via magnetic fields. The application is aimed at medical imaging where the particles are applied as tracer directly into the blood stream. Medical safety considerations such as peripheral nerve stimulation limit the maximal amplitude of the magnetic fields and in turn the field of view size. To handle this constraint the concept of patches was introduced, which allows a shift of a field of view to different positions in order to enlarge the imaging area. If this is done statically an overlap of patches can be used to reduce truncation artifacts occurring at the adjacent edges. In this contribution, a differentiation of two different kinds of patch overlaps, i.e. a trajectory and a system matrix overlap, is made. Further, different concepts to combine the resulting redundant information are investigated with respect to the reduction of truncation artifacts. The methods are analyzed in detail in a simulation study and validated on experimental data.