Purpose: To evaluate the ability of a custom-built coil design to provide improved signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and less signal drop with increasing depth at the carotid artery. Materials and Methods: Phased-array surface coils can provide a high SNR to image the carotid vessel wall. However, given the required field-of-view (FOV) and penetration depth, these coils show either a fast signal drop with increasing depth or a moderate SNR at increased coil size. A quadrature surface coil (a butterfly coil in conjunction with a linear single-loop coil) was compared with a phased-array coil in phantom and human studies. Results: The phantom studies showed that the quadrature coil has better SNR over the required FOV than a standard phased-array coil (26% at 3 cm depth). Conclusion: The quadrature coil enables better image quality to be achieved.

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doi.org/10.1002/jmri.20894, hdl.handle.net/1765/36654
Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Erasmus MC: University Medical Center Rotterdam

Ouhlous, M., Moelker, A., Flick, H., Wielopolski, P., de Weert, T., Pattynama, P., & van der Lugt, A. (2007). Quadrature coil design for high-resolution carotid artery imaging scores better than a dual phased-array coil design with the same volume coverage. Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, 25(5), 1079–1084. doi:10.1002/jmri.20894