External Waveguide Magnetic Resonance Imaging for lower limbs at 3 T.

INTRODUCTION We report a method based on the travelling-wave MRI approach, in order to acquire images of human lower limbs with an external waveguide at 3 T. METHOD We use a parallel-plate waveguide and an RF surface coil for reception, while a whole-body birdcage is used for transmission. The waveguide and the surface coil are located right outside the magnet, in the MR conditional devices zone. We ran numerical simulations to investigate the B1 field generated by the surface coil located at one of the waveguides, as well as a saline-solution phantom positioned on the opposite side (150 cm away) inside the magnet. RESULTS We obtained phantom images by varying the distance between the coil and the phantom, in order to investigate the signal-to-noise ratio and to validate our numerical simulations. Lower limb images of a healthy volunteer were also acquired, demonstrating the viability of this approach. Standard pulse sequences were used and no physical modifications were made to the MR imager. CONCLUSIONS These numerical and experimental results show that travelling-wave MRI can produce high-quality images with only a simple waveguide and an RF coil located outside the magnet. This can be particularly favorable when acquiring images of lower limbs requiring a larger field of view.