A low SAR eight element passively fed meander dipole array for 7T prostate imaging

The purpose is to compare the performance of an eight element passively fed meander dipole antenna designed for body MRI at 7 Tesla with that of a conventional actively fed array. The measured mean transmit efficiency (B₁⁺/square root input power) in the prostate was 15% lower with the passively fed dipoles array, but the simulated max SAR_10g was 44% lower, meaning that the overall SAR efficiency of the passively fed array is higher. In vivo RF shimmed turbo spin echo images showed similar image quality for both arrays, but with lower SAR values for the passively fed array.