William
Dominguez-Viqueira1,2, Matthew S. Fox, 1,3, Giles E. Santyr2,4
1Imaging Laboratories, Robarts Research
Institute, London, Ontario, Canada; 2Department of Medical
Biophysics, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada; 3Department
of Physics and Astronomy, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario,
Canada; 4Department of Medical Imaging, University of Western
Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada
The
maximum SNR in Hyperpolarized Noble Gas (HNG) MR imaging of rodent lung is
expected to be at high fields (>3T). However, SNR improvements of up to
300% have been demonstrated in rat lung at 73.5mT using Litz-wire coils. In
this work the SNR for HNG MRI of rat lung was investigated theoretically and
in vivo, using multi-turn Litz-wire coils at 73.5mT and compared to images
obtained at 3T using 129Xe and 3He. The use of
Litz-wire coils significantly reduces the advantage (from factor ten to a
factor of two) of using high fields for HNG imaging of rat lungs.