A 128-channel receive-only cardiac coil for highly accelerated cardiac MRI at 3 Tesla.
A 128-channel receive-only array coil is described and tested for cardiac imaging at 3T. The coil is closely contoured to the body with a "clam-shell" geometry with 68 posterior and 60 anterior elements, each 75 mm in diameter, and arranged in a continuous overlapped array of hexagonal symmetry to minimize nearest neighbor coupling. Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and noise amplification for parallel imaging (G-factor) were evaluated in phantom and volunteer experiments. These results were compared to those of commercially available 24-channel and 32-channel coils in routine use for cardiac imaging. The in vivo measurements with the 128-channel coil resulted in SNR gains compared to the 24-channel coil (up to 2.2-fold in the apex). The 128- and 32-channel coils showed similar SNR in the heart, likely dominated by the similar element diameters of these coils. The maximum G-factor values were up to seven times better for a seven-fold acceleration factor (R=7) compared to the 24-channel coil and up to two-fold improved compared to the 32-channel coil. The ability of the 128-channel coil to facilitate highly accelerated cardiac imaging was demonstrated in four volunteers using acceleration factors up to seven-fold (R=7) in a single spatial dimension.
Schmitt
Melanie
M
Department of Radiology, A.A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts 02129, USA.
Potthast
Andreas
A
Sosnovik
David E
DE
Polimeni
Jonathan R
JR
Wiggins
Graham C
GC
Triantafyllou
Christina
C
Wald
Lawrence L
LL
D000465:Algorithms; D004867:Equipment Design; D006321:Heart / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000295:instrumentation*; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D019028:Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Cine / Q000295:instrumentation*; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging