Image fusion of magnetocardiography and magnetic resonance imaging to correlate functional and anatomical imaging of the heart

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is the most suitable method to correlate magnetocardiographic (MCG) localization results to anatomical structures of the heart. The study presented in this paper was conducted to determine the accuracy of positioning and coordinate transfer between MCG and MRI. The results show that the accuracy of image fusion of the two methods is in the range of 6–8 mm. In a second step, the combined method was applied to patients with ventricular arrhythmias. It was demonstrated that the ectopic focus is localized at the margin of damaged areas in patients with heart diseases, while idiopathic arrhythmias typically originate in the right ventricular outflow tract.