Multichannel RF Transmission Improves Cardiac Cine BSSFP MRI at 3.0T

Oliver M. Weber¹, Javier Sanchez Gonzalez¹

Current cardiac MRI at 3.0 T is hampered by inferior quality of bSSFP cine images. RF transmission with multiple channels (MTx) increases B1 homogeneity and allows for shortening of TR. In six volunteers, cardiac cine bSSFP MRI was performed with and without the use of MTx. With MTx, TRs were reduced by 0.3-0.4 ms, and resulting images provided better signal homogeneity and higher CNR and suffered from fewer artifacts. Usage of MTx thus greatly enhanced image quality and reliability.