Patent ID: 7777485

Claim:
A method for determining a location of a device already located within a patient during a surgical procedure, comprising: acquiring a plurality of magnetic resonance tracking signals in response to a corresponding plurality of pulse sequences, wherein the plurality of magnetic resonance tracking signals are acquired from a tracking coil mounted in the device located within the patient during the surgical procedure; determining a location value of the tracking coil from the corresponding magnetic resonance tracking signal for each pulse sequence to produce a plurality of location values for the tracking coil; determining a candidate location value from the plurality of location values of the tracking coil for replacement; determining an off-resonance error value for each of the plurality of magnetic resonance tracking signals except the candidate location value; determining a replacement location value for the candidate location value based on the off-resonance error value of the plurality of magnetic resonance tracking signals as a whole; and determining the location of the device based on the plurality of location values for the tracking coil, wherein the candidate location value was replaced in the plurality of location values with the replacement location value, and wherein the device is located within the patient during the surgical procedure.