Florian Martin Meise1, Julien Rivoire1, Wiggins C. Graham2,3, Boris Keil4, Maxim Terekhov1, Davide Santoro1, Zahir Salhi5, Sergei Karpuk5, Lawrence L. Wald2,3, Wolfgang G. Schreiber1
1Section of Medical Physics, Department of Diagnostical and Interventional Radiology, Johannes Gutenberg University Medical School, Mainz, RLP, Germany; 2Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, MGH, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA, USA; 3Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology; 4Department of Diagnostic Radiology, University Hospital, Philipps University, Marburg, Germany; 5Institute of Physics, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany
The high potential of functional lung imaging using hyperpolarized 3He is tempered by the long breath-holds necessary to acquire the needed data. In addition to patient discomfort, every RF-pulse diminishes the hyperpolarisation of the 3He. To understand and analyse the possibilities of parallel imaging for shortening scan times and increase SNR compared to commonly used volume coils, a 32-channel phased array was developed and compared with a standard single channel volume coil. SNR gain up to factor of 7 in the periphery was achieved and can now be used to improve human lung imaging significantly.