C A. Azlan1,2, Pierluigi Di Giovanni1, Trevor S. Ahearn1, Wim M. Prins3, Matthew Clemence4, Scott I. Semple5, Fiona J. Gilbert1, Thomas W. Redpath1
1Aberdeen Biomedical Imaging Centre, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK; 2Department of Biomedical Imaging, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; 3Philips Healthcare, Best, Netherlands; 4Philips Healthcare, Reigate, England, UK; 5Department of Medical Physics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
A major problem of 3T MRI is the increase in B1 inhomogeneity. This may affect the accuracy of quantitative and semi-quantitative analysis of DCE-MRI of the breast. To minimise this, Philips Medical Systems have proposed a bisagittal power optimisation (PO) approach. B1 maps were acquired using the conventional PO approach, for transverse imaging, and the bisagittal approach, for sagittal imaging, for 25 healthy volunteers. We show that by using bisagittal PO, the B1 field inhomogeneity is significantly reduced across the field of view. We conclude that by using sagittal imaging and bisagittal PO some implementations of DCE-MRI at 3T could be improved.