Shreyas S. Vasanawala1,
Thomas Grafendorfer2, Paul Calderon3, Greig Scott4,
Marcus T. Alley1, Michael Lustig5, Anja C. Brau6,
Arvind Sonik1, Peng Lai6, Vijay Alagappan7,
Brian A. Hargreaves1
1Radiology,
Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA; 2ATD Coils, GE Healthare,
Stanford, CA, USA; 3MR Hardware Engineering, GE Healthcare,
Fremont, CA, USA; 4Electrical Engineering, Stanford University,
Stanford, CA, USA; 5Electrical Engineering & CS, UC Berkeley,
Berkeley, CA, USA; 6Global Applied Science Laboratory, GE
Healthcare, Menlo Park, CA, USA; 7ATD Coils, GE Healthcare,
Aurora, OH, USA
Pediatric abdominal MRI is challenged by small anatomy and limited patient cooperation. This work investigates the feasibility of utilizing a dedicated high-density pediatric body array to permit high resolution imaging with slices thin enough for adequate multiplanar reformatting. With IRB approval, 8 pediatric patients underwent abdominal MRI with a high-density coil, including coronal 3D T2, axial 2D T2, coronal 3D T1, and navigated axial 3D T1. 3D acquisitions were assessed for adequacy of SNR and reformat quality and found to be of diagnostic quality. Thus, a high-density coil may enable a rapid MRI protocol at millimeter resolution for pediatric body imaging.