CALCULATION OF SENSITIVITY CORRECTION FACTORS FOR SURFACE COIL MRS

Quantification of MRS signals obtained with surface coils is difficult due to the inhomogeneous response of these coils, This inhomogeneity results in the measured signal from a defined volume of interest (VoI) being spatially dependent. To account for the sensitivity variation with position from the surface coil, we have developed a method of calculating correction factors for defined VOIs based on an experimentally obtained 3D sensitivity coil map. These factors may then be applied to spectra obtained from these VOIs to accurately take into consideration the varying coil sensitivity resulting in a reduction of measured signal. This method is demonstrated here to be able to correct for the inhomogeneity of surface coils over a range of two coil radii to within 4% accuracy.