4D Flow-Sensitive MRI of the Thoracic Aorta using 12- & 32-Channel Coils

Aurelien F. Stalder¹, Zhi Yuan Dong¹, Yang Qi¹, Jelena Bock², Jrgen Hennig², Michael Markl², Kun Cheng Li¹

4D flow-sensitive MRI was performed in the thoracic aorta of 11 healthy volunteers at 3T using 12- and 32-channel coils and parallel imaging (GRAPPA) with accelerations R=2 and R=3. SNR, velocity divergence and streamlines length quantification as well as semi-quantitative image grading was performed to assess data quality. R=3 allowed to save 19.55% measurement time compared to R=2 (14.22.4 min). 12 channels with R=2 and 32 channels with R=3 produced data with significantly higher quality compared to 12 channels and R=3. There was no significant difference between 12 channels with R=2 and 32 channels with R=3 but for the depiction of supra-aortic branches where the 32-channel coil was superior.