Gunhild Erstad Aandal1,
Gurpreet S. Sandhu1, Ronald D. Novak1, Dean Nakamoto1,
Luis Landeras1, Mark A. Griswold1, 2, Paul
de Heer3, Andrew G. Webb3, Vikas Gulani1,
4
1Dept.
of Radiology, University Hospitals Case Medical Center, Cleveland, OH, United
States; 2Dept. of Biomedical Engineering, Case Western Reserve
University, Cleveland, OH, United States; 3Dept. of Radiology,
Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, ZA, Netherlands; 4Dept.
of Biomedical Engineering , Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH,
United States
3T abdominal imaging is limited by image quality loss due to inhomogeneities in the transmitted RF field, even with dual channel transmit. Recent simulation and in vivo volunteer studies have shown that thin pads made with novel high permittivity materials are a simple, inexpensive solution to ameliorate these problems. Here we show pilot patient studies comparing image quality without and with these pads, for 3D fat suppressed gradient echo imaging of the abdomen in a dual transmit 3T system. The preliminary data confirm the potential of these pads for use in improving image quality for abdominal imaging at 3T.