Dedicated receiver array coil for H lung imaging with same-breath acquisition of hyperpolarized He and Xe gas.

Purpose: Same-breath acquisition of H and hyperpolarized gases ( He and Xe) in the lungs provides complementary information on pulmonary structure and function with inherent spatial-temporal registration of the images from the different nuclei. To date H images have been acquired using the MR system's body coil, which has low SNR when compared with dedicated receiver-array coils. This study demonstrates the design and application of a dedicated H receiver array to improve the H lung SNR for use in same-breath acquisition with hyperpolarized gas He or Xe at 1.5 Tesla.

Theory And Methods: A four-loop dedicated receiver-array was developed in-house for H lung MRI to work in compatibility with existing He/ Xe transmit-receive coils. As part of the design process, a new generalized circuit formalism was developed for trap circuits for such a dedicated H receiver array at 63.8 MHz with traps for He 48.6 MHz and Xe 17.7 MHz.

Results: The H lung image SNR from the novel H array was twice that observed with the H body coil when used in same-breath acquisition with the He or Xe T-R coil in situ.

Conclusion: An array coil to improve H SNR of the lung in same-breath acquisition with hyperpolarized gases has been demonstrated. Magn Reson Med 74:291-299, 2015. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.