Harvey E Cline | PubMed Health

PubMed2006

32-element receiver-coil array for cardiac imaging.

A lightweight 32-element MRI receiver-coil array was designed and built for cardiac imaging. It comprises an anterior array of 21 copper rings (75 mm diameter) and a posterior array of 11 rings (107 mm diameter) that are arranged in hexagonal lattices so as to decouple nearest neighbors, and curved around the left side of the torso. Imaging experiments on phantoms and human volunteers show that it yields superior performance relative to an eight-element cardiac array as well as a 32-element whole-torso array for both traditional nonaccelerated cardiac imaging and 3D parallel imaging with acceleration factors as high as 16.

Algorithms↗

PubMed2006

Toward single breath-hold whole-heart coverage coronary MRA using highly accelerated parallel imaging with a 32-channel MR system.

Coronary MR angiography (CMRA) is generally confined to the acquisition of multiple targeted slabs with coverage dictated by the competing constraints of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), physiological motion, and scan time. This work addresses these obstacles by demonstrating the technical feasibility of using a 32-channel coil array and receiver system for highly accelerated volumetric breath-hold CMRA. The use of the 32-element array in unaccelerated CMRA studies provided a baseline SNR increase of as much as 40% over conventional cardiac-optimized phased array coils, which resulted in substantially enhanced image quality and improved delineation of the coronary arteries. Modest accelerations were used to reduce breath-hold durations for tailored coverage of the coronary arteries using targeted multi-oblique slabs to as little as 10 s. Finally, high net accelerations were combined with the SNR advantages of a 3D steady-state free precession (SSFP) technique to achieve previously unattainable comprehensive volumetric coverage of the coronary arteries in a single breath-hold. The merits and limitations of this simplified volumetric imaging approach are discussed and its implications for coronary MRA are considered.

Coronary Angiography↗