Black Blood MRI of the Carotid Arteries with Local Excitation Coils at 7 Tesla

Tijl A. van der Velden¹, Wouter Koning¹, Maarten J. Versluis², Dennis W.J. Klomp¹, Peter R. Luijten¹, Jaco J.M. Zwanenburg¹

When imaging plaque formation in the carotid artery black blood methods like DIR are used to increase the contrast between the vessel wall and the lumen. Due to the absence of a built-in volume coil the traditional black blood methods cannot be used at 7 tesla. This work evaluated the performance of 6 different black blood methods using local excitation coils. Evaluation was performed based on the suppression of the blood as well as the effects on the static tissue in a phantom setup. In-vivo experiments with healthy volunteers were performed to validate the performance when imaging the carotid artery.