Elucidation of accuracy in calibration of MR signal intensity based on transmission amplitude method

To calibrate magnetic resonance (MR) signal intensity that depends on radio frequency (RF) coil loading, the transmission amplitude (TRA) for the excitation in the transmit-receive RF coil has been used as a good index in the so-called TRA method. As this TRA method needs neither an internal reference nor an additional external reference for the calibration, its accuracy is free from reference measurements. This study elucidated the calibration accuracy of MR signal intensities based on the TRA method. A cylindrical gel phantom was used for accuracy measurements with a 1.5-T MRI unit with conventional T1 imaging as a simple pulse sequence for various loading conditions. The brain parenchyma of eight healthy volunteers also showed calibrated MR signal deviations. The error of the phantom calibration measurements was 2.18% (S.D.%). The background noise intensity of images was theoretically derived to correlate with the impedance mismatching of the RF coil, which is inevitable for fixed tuning, even for automatic tuning that is not always exact. Taking into account this noise intensity, the calibration method was modified to reduce its error to 1.50%. The standard deviations of the calibrated values in the thalamus and frontal white matter were 2.9 and 3.8%, respectively. We suggest that the modified TRA method is a practical and reliable technique to obtain clinical numeric evidence.