Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 4, 2026
15:48
Tracking the Mammary Architectural Features and Detecting Breast Cancer with Magnetic Resonance Diffusion Tensor Imaging
Published on: December 15, 2014
Custom-fitted 16-channel bilateral breast coil for bidirectional parallel imaging.
Anderson N Nnewihe1, Thomas Grafendorfer, Bruce L Daniel
1Department of Radiology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA. nnewihe@stanford.edu
Magnetic Resonance in Medicine
|February 3, 2011
Summary
A new 16-channel breast MRI coil significantly improves image quality. This custom coil offers higher signal-to-noise ratio and faster imaging through parallel acceleration, aiding in better breast cancer detection.
Area of Science:
- Medical Imaging
- Biomedical Engineering
- Radiology
Background:
- Breast MRI requires high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and efficient parallel imaging for accurate diagnosis.
- Existing commercial coils may limit acceleration capabilities and image quality.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and evaluate a novel 16-channel receive-only array coil for bilateral breast MRI at 3 Tesla.
- To assess the coil's performance in terms of SNR, parallel imaging acceleration, and image resolution compared to a commercial coil.
Main Methods:
- A custom 16-channel, cup-shaped coil with geometrically overlapped elements for decoupling was designed.
- Phantom studies evaluated SENSitivity Encoding (SENSE) noise amplification (g-factor).
- In vivo studies in healthy volunteers and patients compared the custom coil against an 8-channel commercial coil, assessing SNR, bidirectional parallel imaging (SENSE and Autocalibrating Reconstruction for Cartesian sampling - ARC), and spatial resolution.
Main Results:
- The 16-channel coil demonstrated a 3.6x higher mean SNR in the breast compared to the 8-channel coil.
- Higher quality accelerated images were achieved with the custom coil.
- In patients, the 16-channel coil enabled high-quality, high-resolution imaging with bidirectional acceleration (R = 6.3).
Conclusions:
- The custom 16-channel breast MRI coil significantly enhances SNR and parallel imaging performance.
- This coil facilitates high-quality, accelerated breast MRI, potentially improving diagnostic accuracy.
- The developed coil represents a valuable advancement for breast imaging applications.
