Parallel RF Transmission for Clinical MR Imaging of the Human Spinal Cord at 3.0 Tesla: Preliminary Results

Michael Nelles¹, Roy Knig¹, Jrgen Gieseke^1,2, Marjolijn Guerand-van Battum², Marco Nijenhuis², Guido Kukuk¹, Daniel Thomas¹, Magnus Andersson¹, Beate Koberstein¹, Hans Heinz Schild¹, Winfried A. Willinek¹

Parallel RF transmission holds the promise of reducing dielectric resonance effects at high field strengths and enables control of RF distribution to optimize RF deposition. Up to now, parallel RF transmission has not been used or fully tested on routine clinical high-field MR systems. Our study demonstrates that parallel RF transmission in MR imaging of the spinal cord yields a diagnostic image quality readily comparable to that of standard single transmission sequences, while at the same time saving a significant amount of examination time.