Quadrature coil design for high-resolution carotid artery imaging scores better than a dual phased-array coil design with the same volume coverage.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the ability of a custom-built coil design to provide improved signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and less signal drop with increasing depth at the carotid artery.


METHODS
Phased-array surface coils can provide a high SNR to image the carotid vessel wall. However, given the required field-of-view (FOV) and penetration depth, these coils show either a fast signal drop with increasing depth or a moderate SNR at increased coil size. A quadrature surface coil (a butterfly coil in conjunction with a linear single-loop coil) was compared with a phased-array coil in phantom and human studies.


RESULTS
The phantom studies showed that the quadrature coil has better SNR over the required FOV than a standard phased-array coil (26% at 3 cm depth).


CONCLUSIONS
The quadrature coil enables better image quality to be achieved.
Ouhlous
Mohamed
M
Department of Radiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center, Erasmus Medical Centre, 3015 GD Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Moelker
Adriaan
A
Flick
Herman J
HJ
Wielopolski
Piotr A
PA
de Weert
Thomas T
TT
Pattynama
Peter M T
PM
van der Lugt
Aad
A
D016893:Carotid Stenosis / Q000175:diagnosis*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D004867:Equipment Design; D006801:Humans; D018810:Magnetic Resonance Angiography / Q000295:instrumentation*; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging