Breathhold imaging of the upper abdomen using a circular polarized-array coil: Comparison with standard body coil imaging

Current studies emphasize the use of array coils to decrease noise and increase the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR). We applied T1-weighted and T2-weighted standard nonbreathhold spin echo (SE) sequences and T1-weighted FLASH, TurboFLASH, T2-weighted spin-echo time (TSE), and heavily T2-weighted half Fourier acquisition single-shot TSE (HASTE) sequences during breathhold for abdominal imaging in 15 normal volunteers. The breathhold scans were performed using both a standard coil and a circular polarized array coil. We analyzed the signal intensity (SI), SNR, and CNR of abdominal organs in all sequences. SNRs increased in all cases by an overall factor of similar to 3 due to an 8% increase in overall SIs and a 50% decrease in noise when applying the array coil. Although the array-coil FLASH sequence performed at least as well as the respective SE sequence, the SNRs of the array-coil TurboFLASH, TSE breathhold, and HASTE sequences were generally lower. We conclude that array-coil imaging significantly improves fast imaging of the abdomen.