Abstract #3821

A Flexible Microstrip Transceiver Coil for Imaging Flexed Human Knee Joints at 7 Tesla

Karupppasamy Subburaj¹, Yong Pang¹, Serena Scott¹, Bagrat Amirbekian¹, Richard B. Souza^1,2, Sharmila Majumdar¹, Xiaoliang Zhang¹

¹Department of Radiology & Biomedical Imaging, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States; ²Department of Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Science, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA

Traditional cylindrical knee coils designs present difficulties when imaging flexed knee joints in kinematic studies. We present a novel flexible TR coil based on microstrip transmission lines for in-vivo MR imaging of flexed human knee joints at 7T. This single channel coil was designed to have wing shaped symmetrical loops on a partially foldable teflon substrate to take advantage of 2nd harmonic resonance and a large coverage volume. The coil has a good Q factor ratio and the resonant frequency can be tuned to a broad range in order to adapt to various knee sizes.