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Custom‐fitted 16‐channel bilateral breast coil for bidirectional parallel imaging
Author(s) -
Nnewihe Anderson N.,
Grafendorfer Thomas,
Daniel Bruce L.,
Calderon Paul,
Alley Marcus T.,
Robb Fraser,
Hargreaves Brian A.
Publication year - 2011
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.22771
Subject(s) - electromagnetic coil , image quality , imaging phantom , noise (video) , signal to noise ratio (imaging) , radiofrequency coil , channel (broadcasting) , cartesian coordinate system , signal (programming language) , image resolution , sensitivity (control systems) , physics , nuclear magnetic resonance , acoustics , computer science , optics , artificial intelligence , mathematics , telecommunications , electronic engineering , image (mathematics) , geometry , engineering , quantum mechanics , programming language
A 16‐channel receive‐only, closely fitted array coil is described and tested in vivo for bilateral breast imaging at 3 T. The primary purpose of this coil is to provide high signal‐to‐noise ratio and parallel imaging acceleration in two directions for breast MRI. Circular coil elements (7.5‐cm diameter) were placed on a closed “cup‐shaped” platform, and nearest neighbor coils were decoupled through geometric overlap. Comparisons were made between the 16‐channel custom coil and a commercially available 8‐channel coil. SENSitivity Encoding (SENSE) parallel imaging noise amplification ( g ‐factor) was evaluated in phantom scans. In healthy volunteers, we compared signal‐to‐noise ratio, parallel imaging in one and two directions, Autocalibrating Reconstruction for Cartesian sampling (ARC) g ‐factor, and high spatial resolution imaging. When compared with a commercially available 8‐channel coil, the 16‐channel custom coil shows 3.6× higher mean signal‐to‐noise ratio in the breast and higher quality accelerated images. In patients, the 16‐channel custom coil has facilitated high‐quality, high‐resolution images with bidirectional acceleration of R = 6.3. Magn Reson Med, 2011. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.