An Advantageous Combination of Travelling Wave and Local Receive for Spine MR Imaging at 7T: Local SAR Reduction and SENSE Reconstruction

Anna Andreychenko¹, Ingmar Voogt², Hugo Kroeze², Dennis W. Klomp², Jan J. Lagendijk¹, Peter Luijten², Cornelis A.T. van den Berg¹

Spine structure contains a lot of fine details and, thus, high field spine MR imaging would benefit from the increased image resolution due to SNR gain. In case of a local transmit coil its performance is limited by SAR restrictions. In this work we explore a possible combination of the novel travelling wave RF excitation combined with local receive array to image the lumbar spine at 7T. We have demonstrated that transmitting with the travelling wave significantly reduces local SAR values, using local receive coils improves B1- sensitivity and available reference scan allows optimal SENSE image reconstruction.