B1-Based Local SAR Estimation for a Parallel Transmit System at 3T: A Simulation Study

Stefanie Buchenau¹, Martin Haas¹, Daniel Nicolas Splitthoff¹, Juergen Hennig¹, Maxim Zaitsev¹

The main challenge of estimating specific absorption rate via post-processing of measured B1maps is to find good assumptions on the not directly measurable components of the magnetic field and to correct for the influences by an additional phase resulting from the receive process that can physically not be separated from the transmit phase. Within this study an extension of this method is proposed that takes advantage of the multiplicity of B1maps measured with a multi-transmit array designed for parallel transmission experiments at 3T. Sufficiently good reconstruction of SAR distributions is demonstrated.