Patent ID: 8611982

Claim:
A tracking system for an insertable instrument comprising: at least one photonic orbital angular momentum generating device configured to be mounted to a selected location on the insertable instrument to hyperpolarize nuclear magnetic dipoles in a region of interest adjacent thereto; an RF coil configured to receive nuclear magnetic resonance signals from the nuclear magnetic dipoles in the region of interest; a controller configured to control gradient coils for inducing a magnetic field gradient across the region of interest, the gradient magnetic field encoding spatial positions in a frequency of the nuclear magnetic resonance signals; a radio frequency receiver configured to receive the nuclear magnetic resonance signals from the RF coil; a frequency-to-position decoder configured to convert the received nuclear magnetic resonance signals into corresponding spatial positions; an image memory configured to store a diagnostic image of a subject into which the insertable instrument is to be inserted; and a video processor configured to combine the spatial positions from the frequency-to-position decoder and at least a portion of the diagnostic image from the image memory into a combined image with the location of the region of interest and a portion of the instrument marked on the diagnostic image and configured to control the display of the combined image on a monitor.