Abstract #2015

DiCarlo J, Scott G, Conolly S, Hu B, Nishimura D

Peripheral vascular disease (PVD) often presents with non-healing skin lesions, and wound-healing concerns make biopsy unfeasible. MRI provides skin contrast and sensitivity depth, but requires SNR improvement to keep imaging times reasonable. We examine the tradeoff of decreased copper resistance at 77 K and cryostat-induced B1 losses to determine the optimal coil configuration for skin microscopy. Images from a 4x4x1 cm3 slab of 78x78 &[mu]m2 resolution acquired in ~2 minutes in the skin of a normal subject and diabetic patient with PVD are presented. Results indicate great promise for ischemic skin imaging.