Online reconstruction of 3D magnetic particle imaging data.

Magnetic particle imaging is a quantitative functional imaging technique that allows imaging of the spatial distribution of super-paramagnetic iron oxide particles at high temporal resolution. The raw data acquisition can be performed at frame rates of more than 40 volumes s(-1). However, to date image reconstruction is performed in an offline step and thus no direct feedback is available during the experiment. Considering potential interventional applications such direct feedback would be mandatory. In this work, an online reconstruction framework is implemented that allows direct visualization of the particle distribution on the screen of the acquisition computer with a latency of about 2 s. The reconstruction process is adaptive and performs block-averaging in order to optimize the signal quality for a given amount of reconstruction time.