Brock Peterson1, Ron Watkins2,
Glen Morrell3, Steven Allen4, Danny Park1,
Josh Kaggie5, Garry
1Department of Electrical &
Computer Engineering, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, United States; 2Department
of Radiology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States; 3Department
of Radiology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, United States; 4Department
of Physics, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, United States; 5Department
of Physics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, United States
Recent
improvements in MRI sequences and hardware have renewed interest in sodium
MRI. Dual-tuned coils are highly
desirable to allow inclusion of a sodium exam during a standard proton scan
without moving the patient, and to allow accurate registration of sodium and
proton images. Unfortunately, many
dual-tuned coil configurations come with a significant penalty in SNR performance. In this work, we evaluate the sodium SNR
performance penalty and B1 homogeneity associated with a hybrid low-pass
sodium, high-pass hydrogen dual-resonant birdcage design. We show that the addition of the high-pass
hydrogen structure has a negligible effect on both sodium SNR performance and
B1 homogeneity.
Keywords