Sascha Brunheim1,2, Stephan Orzada1, Soeren Johst1, Marcel Gratz1,2, Maximilian N. Voelker1, Oliver Kraff1, Martina Floeser3, Andreas K. Bitz3, Mark E. Ladd1,3, and Harald H. Quick1,2
1Erwin L. Hahn Institute for Magentic Resonance Imaging, University Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany, 2High Field and Hybrid MR Imaging, University Hospital Essen, Essen, Germany, 3Medical Physics in Radiology, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany
Synopsis
With current methods the mitigation of transmit field inhomogeneity at ultrahigh field by multi-channel RF shimming with conventional methods is relatively time consuming. This applies in particular for parallel transmit/receive in-vivo body imaging within breath-hold and during organ motion. Therefore, we propose a new technique merging fast acquired relative single channel maps and the spatial-dependent flip-angle distribution of two complementary shims to define absolute transmit coil maps for fast and accurate RF shim calculation. The performance of this technique is validated against established methods in phantom measurements and its reliability is shown in comparison to simulation data serving as reference.Purpose
Fast
and accurate mapping of the transmit field (B
1+) is an essential
prerequisite for parallel excitation applications. Many established
techniques like actual flip angle imaging (AFI)
[1]
and dual refocusing echo acquisition (DREAM)
[2]
work well for stationary body regions and for the abdomen at 3T
[3].
However acquisition times for single channel maps are unsuitably
long for multi-channel body imaging and their dynamic flip angle (FA)
range is limited especially for lower values (< 20°). Furthermore,
the B
1+ distribution at ultrahigh field has severe signal voids which
compromise mapping sensitivity. In this work we propose a method
to measure single channel B
1+ maps by using a fast measurement of
relative maps acquired in an interleaved manner that are normalized
through the use of two absolute FA maps acquired by pre-saturation
TurboFLASH (TFL)
[4]
in a time interleaved acquisition of modes (TIAMO)
[5].
This sequence as a whole is referred to as B1TIAMO.
Methods
The
2D-B1TIAMO sequence consists of two consecutive parts: A series of
gradient-echo (GRE) images with a single channel transmitting at a time
[6]
(TR=1s). Followed by two magnetization prepared sequences with TFL
readout (TR=3.5s) using two complementary shims to achieve sufficient
signal in every voxel even for low FA values. The information on
absolute FA distribution is used to calculate a voxel-wise scaling
factor for the relative B1-maps, utilizing a local weighting of the
two measurements that takes into account the signal amplitude of
their respective images. The total measurement time for a
single axial slice was TA=22s for an 8ch transceiver array (case 0).
For further improvement to prevailing procedures, the relative single
channel maps
were
acquired continuously in an interleaved manner with the
minimum achievable echo time (TE=1.05ms; TA=15s). The transmit channel
was changed clockwise per phase encoding step in a centric-down
(case 1) or linear-ascending way (case 2). In contrast to the normal
centric-up sampling (case 0), these data were low-pass filtered
accordingly post-hoc.
Data
were acquired on a Siemens 7T system (Magnetom 7T, Siemens Healthcare,
Germany) with a custom 8ch Tx/Rx head
[7]
and 8ch Tx/Rx flexible body array
[8].
Figure 1 depicts the setup for both phantom measurements and the
voxelwise receive channel assignment for maximum signal contribution.
A spherical 3.1Liter head phantom (T1=850ms; T2=70ms) was used for
evaluation of 2D-B1TIAMO performance for one transversal slice
versus a 2D-DREAM sequence (non-selective rectangular pulse;
TR=6.3ms; TE1=1.98ms; TR2=3.95ms; TA=7.5s) and the 3D-AFI method
(slab-selective sinc pulse for eight slices; TR=100ms; TE=3ms;
TA=56s; TAslice=7s).
Moreover, the experimental results of a large 32Liter body phantom
(T1=530ms; T2=300) were qualitatively compared for one axial plane
between 2D-B1TIAMO, 3D-AFI and simulation data. Overall matrix size
was 64x64 with a voxel volume of 5.5x5.5x10mm
3.
Results
In
Figure 2 a B
1+ comparison of the directly measured pre-saturated TFL
and the 2D-B1TIAMO technique against the two established methods for
the 8ch transceiver head array is shown. Further is an excerpt of the different case sequence timing diagrams depicted. Each method should yield a
60° FA in the middle of the head phantom in CP+ mode. In general
both the pre-saturated TFL and the 2D-B1TIAMO method (CP+ mode
reconstructed from single channel maps) showed good agreement with
the standard of reference. Furthermore, most of the errors present in
the pre-saturated TFL maps due to low signal-to-noise areas inside a
body phantom (Figure 3) could be resolved by the B1TIAMO technique
when reconstructing the distributions from the single channel maps.
Improvements by B1TIAMO could be seen especially within the
large-volume body-phantom (Figure 4) in comparison to the AFI
technique which fails due to insufficient
signal within the phantom for absolute single channel FA maps. Figure
5 shows the effect of Gaussian filtering on the single channel maps.
Artifacts could be greatly reduced and good agreement between
measurement and simulation is achieved.
Discussion
The
usefulness of the combined B1TIAMO technique has been shown in
phantom experiments. Two prerequisites have been fulfilled: First, the
acquisition of 8 relative single channel maps was shortened from 22s
to 15s due to the interleaved coil cycling scheme. Second,
information about the B
1+ distribution could be obtained for every
voxel even within the large-volume body phantom. This was achieved by
the combination of two complementary absolute FA maps. Finally, for
more than 8 transceiver channels in body imaging it is highly desirable to
accelerate the acquisition by employing the proposed interleaved coil
cycling scheme. The gain in acquisition speed achieved with
2D-B1TIAMO rises with the number of channels: For a 32ch Tx/Rx body
coil system currently being developed, the total measurement time could be
reduced from 45s to 18s.
Acknowledgements
The
research leading to these results has received funding from the
European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework
Programme (FP/2007-2013) / ERC Grant Agreement n. 291903 MRexcite.References
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