Optimization of a Four-Coil Array Arrangement for Brain Therapy by MR-Guided Transcranial Focused Ultrasounds

Line Souris¹, Najat Salameh¹, Matthias Korn¹, Laurent Marsac², Jean-Franois Aubry³, Mathieu Pernot³, Mickael Tanter³, Luc Darrasse¹

MRI is a well-suited candidate for temperature monitoring during the heating with transcranial HIFU. For this application, the body coil is usually used because of the constraints due to the large sized of the HIFU system and the stereotactic frame surrounding the patient head. This study showed the improvement of image quality, and therefore temperature sensitivity, by using a dual Flex-coil arrangement. Further improvement is possible by designing dedicated coil arrays with a larger number of coil elements and integrated EMI filters within the coil architecture to reject any interference of the HIFU shots with the MR signal.