Local Excitation Important for Breast MR: Signal Energy from Outside the FOV Decreases Contrast Using Non-Cartesian Acquisitions

Matt Smith¹, Krishna Kurpad², Catherine Moran¹, Xu Zhai¹, Walter Block^1,3, Sean Fain^1,3

Regardless of the sampling technique, the volume of interest is degraded by excited signal energy outside the FOV. With 3D non-Cartesian acquisitions, the effect is incoherent streaking with noise-like appearance. Commercial receive only breast coils require slice/slab excitation from the body coil, exciting tissue outside the FOV. A local transmit/receive breast coil based on a solenoid design is compared with a commercial receive-only coil to demonstrate that local excitation minimizes the unwanted signal energy contaminating the FOV for non-Cartesian breast MR. Measurements of contrast are higher and more consistent using a 3DPR SSFP sequence with a local transmit/receive breast coil.