Motivation: Commercial MRI coils typically offer suboptimal parallel imaging and SNR performance for young children. Goal(s): Construct & evaluate the clinical feasibility of using a highly flexible receive array with small coil loops to image the pediatric chest, abdomen, and pelvis. Approach: Nine patients were scanned with the investigational coil and 9 age- and anatomy-matched control patients were identified. Qualitative grading of image quality metrics was performed by two radiologists. Results: The investigational coil achieves similar image quality to standard coils. Protocol modification to leverage optimal coil geometry is needed. Impact: This work provides initial clinical feasibility on using a small-loop receive coil array for imaging of the chest, abdomen, and pelvis. Diagnostic image quality was obtained in all cases, indicating the small element size is feasible in clinical use.
Moeremans et al. (Tue,) studied this question.