Vascular Guide Wire Navigation with a Magnetic Guidance System: Experimental Results in a Phantom

PURPOSE: To investigate the efficacy of a second-generation prototype magnetic guidance system in complex vessel phantoms versus conventional navigation in simulated interventional radiology procedures and to analyze procedure and fluoroscopy times. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The magnetic guidance system consists of two focused-field permanent magnets on each side of the body that create a 0.1-T navigation field and is integrated with a modified C-arm single-planar digital angiography system. Forty-nine navigations in a glass phantom and 80 navigations in a three-dimensional liver phantom were performed with a magnetically tipped floppy 0.014-inch guide wire and a conventional 0.014-inch microcatheter system. Rates of success and fluoroscopy and procedure times were quantified for both techniques. For the liver phantom experiment, the Mann-Whitney U test was used. For the glass phantom experiment, the Wilcoxon matched pair test was used with the Hodges-Lehmann estimator. RESULTS: In the glass phantom experime...