title: A three-coil comparison for MR angiography.
abstract: The purpose of this work was to compare intracranial magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) image quality using three different radiofrequency coils. The three coil types included a reduced volume quadrature birdcage coil with endcap, a commercially available quadrature birdcage head coil, and a four-element phased-array coil. Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) measurements were obtained from comparison studies performed on a uniform cylindrical phantom. MRA comparisons were performed using data acquired from 15 volunteers and applying a thick-slab three-dimensional time-of-flight sequence. Analysis was performed using the signal difference-to-noise ratio, a quantitative measure of the relative vascular signal. The reduced-volume endcap and phased-array coils, which were designed specifically for imaging the intracranial volume of the head, improved the image SNR and vascular detail considerably over that obtained using the commercially available head coil. The endcap coil configuration provided the best vascular signal overall, while the phased-array coil provided the best results for arteries close to the coil elements.
authors.affiliation: Medical Imaging Research Laboratory, Department of Radiology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84108, USA. rock@doug.med.utah.edu
authors.forename: J R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Hadley
authors.forename: B E
authors.initials: BE
authors.lastname: Chapman
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Roberts
authors.forename: D C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Chapman
authors.forename: K C
authors.initials: KC
authors.lastname: Goodrich
authors.forename: H R
authors.initials: HR
authors.lastname: Buswell
authors.forename: A L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Alexander
authors.forename: J S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Tsuruda
authors.forename: D L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Parker
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000098:blood supply*; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods*; D018810:Magnetic Resonance Angiography / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D012016:Reference Values; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted