William Dominguez Viqueira1,2, Alexei Ouriadov1, Rafael OHalloran3, Sean B. Fain3, Giles E. Santyr1,2
1Imaging Laboratories, Robarts Research Institute, London, Ontario, Canada; 2Medical Biophysics, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada; 3Department of Medical Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA
A signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) comparison between hyperpolarized 3He lung imaging at 1.5 T and 3 T was performed using similar RF coils and identical pulse sequences and parameters in the same healthy volunteer. After correction for flip angle and different polarizations on the two systems using similar hyperpolarized gas mixture phantoms, no significant differences in SNR were found between the two field strengths at band-widths of 32 kHz and 64 kHz. The SNR may improve at 1.5 T compared to 3 T at lower band-widths possible with longer T2* expected at lower field strength.