Abdominal and body imaging examinations constitute an ever growing fraction of clinical MRI exams. Since ultrahigh field MR (UHF-MR) becomes more widespread, a range of applications established in the clinical scenario at 1.5 T and 3.0 T is in the research spotlight at 7.0 T - including abdominal imaging - with the ultimate goal to put the intrinsic sensitivity advantage at 7.0 T into clinical use. Arguably, abdominal MRI at 7.0 T earns the moniker of “advanced MR application” since some of the inherent advantages of UHF-MR are offset by RF power deposition limits, dielectric effects and transmission field non-uniformities. These practical obstacles constrain the applicability of abdominal imaging and parametric mapping commonly used for liver iron assessment and tissue characterization at lower field strengths. Transmit-receive (TX/RX) coil array designs are prudent for abdominal UHF-MR to tackle the challenge of B₁-field inhomogeneities. For all these reasons, this pilot study examines the feasibility of abdominal and body imaging at 7.0 T by taking advantage of an array of 16 bow tie shaped dipole antennae¹.Volunteer experiments were performed using a 7.0 T whole body MR system (Magnetom, Siemens, Erlangen, Germany). The TX/RX array used in this work consists of 16 independent building blocks each containing a bow tie shaped λ/2-dipole antenna immersed in deuterium oxide (D₂O) as high dielectric medium (Fig.1). To constitute the proposed body array eight building blocks were combined to form the anterior coil section and the remaining building blocks were used to constitute the posterior coil section. The building blocks of the inferior ring were shifted 25 mm to the right side of the body for a better liver coverage. EMF simulations were performed using CST Studio Suite 2015 (CST AG, Darmstadt, Germany) with human voxel model Duke (BMI: 23.1 kg/m²) from the Virtual Family to assess the safety of the coil and for the B₁⁺ shimming. For transmission field shaping a phase based shimming approach based on EMF simulations using an efficiency governed merit function was applied with liver being the target organ (Fig.2). High resolution anatomical images were acquired employing a T₁-weighted gradient echo technique (TR=550ms, TE=3.08ms, spatial resolution=(0.3x0.3x2.5)mm³, nominal flip angle=46°, bandwidth=346Hz/pixel, 3 averages). For T₂^* mapping an interleaved multi shot multi echo gradient echo technique was used² (TR=38.8ms, (TE=(2.04-10.20)ms, ΔTE=1.02ms, spatial resolution=(1.0x1.0)mm², slice thickness 2.5mm and 4mm), nominal flip angle 20°, bandwidth= 625Hz/pixel, 4 averages). All acquisitions were conducted in end-expiratory breath held conditions. T₂^* maps were calculated offline using a truncated mono-exponential signal model. Prior to mapping, T₂^*-weighted images were de-noised³.Fig. 3 (A,B) illustrate the overall image quality and the anatomical coverage for a coronal slice across the torso and abdomen. The anatomical coverage of the array was found to be 35cm along the superior-inferior direction. Sub-millimetre details of subtle vascular structures and of the parenchyma in the liver can be observed in Fig. 3C. Besides large vessels capillaries were clearly identifiable due to the enhanced spatial spatial-resolution of (0.3x0.3x2.5)mm³ which is superior to that commonly achieved in clinical settings at 1.5 T and 3.0 T. Please note that the transmission field was tailored to the liver which leaves transmission field inhomogeneities for the left kidney. Fig. 4 shows high resolution abdominal T₂^* maps of the liver and kidney. Mean T₂^* in the liver was found to be approximately 9.0±1.2ms in the parenchyma and 19.2±7.3ms in the larger vessels. Renal T₂^* was approximately 34.1±6.1ms in the renal cortex and 18.5±7.3ms in the renal medulla representing differences in the amount of deoxygenated blood per tissue volume for both compartments.This pilot study demonstrates the feasibility of abdominal imaging and parametric T₂^* mapping of the liver and kidney at 7.0 T by employing a 16 channel dipole RF array. The large field of view and rather uniform excitation field enabled by the proposed bow tie antenna array affords comprehensive anatomic coverage and enhanced spatial resolution. The static offline B₁⁺ shimming approach used here was dedicated to the liver so that excitation field inhomogeneities remained for the kidney. This constraint can be conveniently solved by using subject specific online B₁⁺ shimming taking advantage of multi transmit techniques. Our initial results suggest that high spatial resolution anatomic and functional UHF-MR can be of benefit for clinical liver and kidney imaging. However, further clinical studies have to be conducted to validate the diagnostic capability of 7.0 T liver and renal imaging versus established abdominal and body imaging protocols used in day-to-day clinical routine at 1.5T or 3.0 T.