Patent ID: 8046051

Claim:
An examination apparatus for the observation of a catheter during advancement through a vessel system of a patient, the apparatus comprising: an injection device which injects a contrast agent into the vessel system; a rotational arm imaging device which generates 2D projections of a volume of the patient containing a portion of the vessel system; a data processing unit connected to the imaging device and programmed to perform the processing steps of: reconstructing a 3D representation of the portion of the vessel system from the 2D projections generated by the imaging device when a contrast agent was present in the vessel system; locating and registering a current 2D projection of the catheter in the vessel system generated in a current projection direction with the 3D representation of the vessel system, displaying on a monitor an image of the registered current 2D projection and the 3D representation of the portion of the vessel system, determining an optimal projection direction for generating a next 2D projection of the catheter, and controlling the rotational arm imaging device to rotate to the determined optimal projection direction before generating the next 2D projection of the catheter.