Parallel Imaging Capabilities of an 11-Channel Coil for MRgHIFU Imaging.

Emilee Minalga¹, Allison Payne¹, Robb Merrill¹, Nick Todd¹, Sathya Vijayakumar¹, Dennis L. Parker¹, J. Rock Hadley¹

This work describes the parallel imaging capabilities of an 11-channel breast RF coil for magnetic resonance guided high intensity focused ultrasound. The coil was built to be compatible with a breast magnetic resonance guided high intensity focused ultrasound treatment cylinder and uses capacitive decoupling of adjacent loops. The coil is evaluated for SNR performance, temperature imaging performance, and parallel imaging capabilities. The coil was found to give better SNR over a single loop chest coil. This SNR increase translates to better anatomy imaging and temperature measurements and allows for the use of parallel imaging.