Abstract #1415

Safety and imaging performance of 2-channel RF shimming for fetal MRI at 3T

Filiz Yetisir¹, Esra Abaci Turk^1,2, P. Ellen Grant^1,2,3, Elfar Adalsteinsson^4,5, and Lawrence L. Wald^3,5,6

¹Fetal-Neonatal Neuroimaging and Developmental Science Center, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, United States, ²Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States, ³Department of Radiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States, ⁴Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States, ⁵Harvard-MIT Division of Health Science and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States, ⁶Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, United States

3T MRI provides increased SNR but poses technical challenges for fetal imaging such as increased field inhomogeneity and SAR. RF shimming can address some of these challenges but also adds safety considerations. Using a diverse set of 5 numerical pregnant body models generated from patient MRI datasets, we found that 2-channel RF shimming can improve transmit field amplitude and uniformity by up to 19% and 36% respectively without increasing maternal or fetal SAR. The biggest difference in SAR and transmit field patterns was observed between the supine models and the left lateral model.

This abstract and the presentation materials are available to members only; a login is required.

Join Here