Efficient Broadband Set-Up Using Travelling Wave and Strong Loading for Simultaneous Fluorine and Proton MRI at 7T

Anna Andreychenko¹, Jim Craane¹, Wouter Koning¹, Peter R. Luijten¹, Jan J.W. Lagendijk¹, Cornelis A.T. van den Berg¹, Dennis W.J. Klomp¹

Fluorinated drugs are frequently used in chemotherapy and can be monitored with Fluorine MRSI but reference proton MRI is needed. Use of double tuned coils is prevented by small difference in frequency between 1H and 19F spins. At 7T, a new transmit and receive RF concepts exploiting this small frequency difference can be applied. Waveguide concept with dielectric lining can be used to excite both nuclei. At 7T tissue load increases the bandwidth of receive coil and the same single tuned RF coil can detect both nuclei. Set-up with shared transmit and receive fields for proton/fluorine MRI was successfully demonstrated.