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 Tl-weighted and T2-weighted standard nonbreathhold spin echo (SE) sequences and Tl-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 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.