An Alternative Concept for Non-Sequence Interfering, Contact-Free Respiration Monitoring

Ingmar Graesslin¹, Henry Stahl¹, Kay Nehrke¹, Paul Harvey², Jouke Smink², Giel Mens², Andreas Senn¹, Peter Brnert¹

Respiratory motion is a challenging problem in MRI, especially in abdominal and cardiac imaging. Recently, a new principle was proposed for respiratory motion detection, which has the potential to overcome problems associated with respiratory navigators. It is based on the evaluation of motion-induced changes in the properties of the employed RF transmit coil. Thus, real-time information on respiratory motion can be obtained completely independent from the MR image acquisition sequence. The present method was implemented on a clinical MR system, and the measured respiratory motion curve was compared with that obtained with conventional respiratory navigators.