Clinical Liver MRI at 3.0 Tesla Using Parallel RF Transmission with Patient-Adaptive B1 Shimming

Guido Matthias Kukuk¹, Jrgen Gieseke^1,2, Michael Nelles¹, Roy Knig¹, Magnus Andersson¹, Eugen Muschler¹, Petra Mrtz¹, Jeroen Stout², Marco Nijenhuis², Frank Trber¹, Nuschin Morakkabati-Spitz¹, Daniel Thomas¹, Christiane Katharina Kuhl¹, Hans Heinz Schild¹, Winfried Albert Willinek¹

The clinical implementation of high field MRI systems has introduced new challenges for body imaging with respect to B1 field non-uniformities, generation of standing waves and signal loss particularly in abdominal imaging. To achieve a more homogeneous excitation we evaluated patient-adaptive RF shimming using parallel RF transmission for liver imaging in 22 patients at 3.0 Tesla. Our data demonstrate a significant improvement of image quality and lesion conspicuity in T2-TSE sequences and DWI.