Thomas G. Perkins1, 2, Jeremy L. VanTilburg3, Gwenael Herigault4, Ty Bremer3, Shahid M. Hussain1
1University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, United States; 2Philips Healthcare, Cleveland, OH, United States; 3The Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, United States; 4Philips Healthcare, Best, Netherlands
Parallel radiofrequency transmission (MTX) was recently introduced to address the standing wave artifacts present at 3.0 T by providing independent control over the RF frequency, phase, and amplitude of the transmit RF coil elements. This study explored how patient-specific B1 shimming can eliminate the patient-to-patient variations in the image quality of abdominal MRI at 3.0 T. 99 patients were evaluated using the same abdominal imaging protocol (53 without and 46 with MTX). A significant improvement in overall image quality and decreased patient-to-patient variability were realized with MTX. MTX will likely increase the accessibility and utilization of 3.0T for abdominal MRI.