Raffi Kalayciyan1, Friedrich Wetterling1, Sabine Neudecker2, Norbert Gretz2, Lothar R. Schad1
1Computer Assisted Clinical Medicine, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany; 2Medical Research Center, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany
The quantification of Tissue Sodium Concentration (TSC) requires a homogeneous B1+-field and high SNR to achieve significant values of quantified TSC. Until now, qTSC was performed using long TEs and either by volume resonators, providing high B1+-field homogeneity, but low SNR, or by one transceiver surface coil, which is more sensitive to sodium signal, but suffering from inhomogeneous B1+-field. The aim of this work was to develop a 2-channel 23Na receive-only surface phased-array combined with a commercial double-tuned (23Na/1H) birdcage volume resonator, whereas 3D-UTE sequence with TE<100s[mu] was used.