Premium
Transceive surface coil array for MRI of the human prostate at 4T
Author(s) -
Pinkerton Robert G.,
Near James P.,
Barberi Enzo A.,
Me Ravi S.,
Bartha Robert
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
magnetic resonance in medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.696
H-Index - 225
eISSN - 1522-2594
pISSN - 0740-3194
DOI - 10.1002/mrm.21153
Subject(s) - torso , electromagnetic coil , radiofrequency coil , transmitter , acoustics , amplifier , prostate , magnetic resonance imaging , physics , nuclear magnetic resonance , optics , computer science , bandwidth (computing) , telecommunications , medicine , anatomy , radiology , quantum mechanics , cancer , channel (broadcasting)
A novel torso transceive surface coil array for prostate magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and spectroscopy (MRS) at 4T is presented. It is shown that with the use of a conformal transceive surface coil array with 50 Ω transmitter amplifiers and receiver preamplifiers, one can perform whole‐volume torso imaging while maintaining the high signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) inherent to surface coil designs. Recent theoretical considerations have shown that by focusing the infringing radiofrequency (RF) electromagnetic field, one can achieve increased penetration and signal homogeneity compared to a conventional circularly polarized driving scheme. A variation of this driving scheme particular to the proposed coil design resulted in a twofold increase in SNR in the prostate compared to that achieved with a conventional circularly polarized driving scheme. The novel transceive surface coil array presented is capable of full‐volume imaging of the human torso at 4T while maintaining signal penetration in the deep region of the prostate gland. Magn Reson Med 57:455–458, 2007. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.