Sairamesh Raghuraman1, Frank Resmer2, Matthias F. Mueller2, Michael Manglberger2, Stefan Zbyn3, Claudia Kronnerwetter3, Peter Baer4, Siegfried Trattnig3, Titus Lanz<su
1MRB Research Centre, Wuerzburg, Bayern, Germany; 2RAPID Biomedical GmbH, Rimpar, Germany; 3Dept of Radiology, MR Centre - High Field MR, Medical University of Vienna, Austria; 4Siemens Healthcare, Munich, Germany; 5Dept of Experimental Physics - V, University of Wuerzburg, Germany
High resolution MR imaging of hand is mandatory both to improve early diagnosis and for our understanding of diseases like Rheumatoid Arthritis and Osteoarthritis of wrist and finger joints. While 7 T promises excellent SNR for high resolution imaging of the hand, the usual approach of transmit or transceive arrays may not be the best solutions here, since arrays with a very high density and filling factor are required. This is due to the fact that the hand is a relatively small object and sample noise domination is not necessarily achieved. We present a combination of a volume transmit coil and a 12 channel high density receive (Rx) array for wrist imaging at 7 T.