A Four-Channel 1H/31P Dual-Tuned Transceiver Array for 7 Tesla Cardiac Spectroscopy

Hai Lu¹, Xiaotong Sun¹, Yu Shao¹, Nouha Salibi², Bernd Stoeckel², Thomas Stewart Denney Jr. ¹, Ronald J. Beyers¹, Shumin Wang¹

Early stages of heart failure are characterized by reduction in energy reserve with impairment of myocardial contractility and/relaxation. The Pcr/ATP ratio obtained from 31P MRS is a metabolic parameter to assess myocardial energetic reserves. In this study, we propose to develop a four-channel 1H/31P dual-tuned transceiver array for cardiac spectroscopy at 7 Tesla. A unique coil design was employed to achieve decoupling of neighboring coils at multiple frequencies simultaneously. Static B1 shimming with both phase and magnitude was further applied at 7T to ensure that no intensity fallout occurs in the heart region. Phantom test results confirmed the design principle.