Reproducibility and variability of tailored and universal nonselective excitation pulses at 7T for human body imaging: Re-scans after one year

3D ultrahigh field (UHF) imaging of the body, particularly the heart, is highly challenging due to the inhomogeneous transmit field (B1+) leading to spatially varying flip-angle (FA) patterns. This study demonstrates that pre-computed universal pulses (UPs) allow for calibration-free 3D cardiac FA homogenization at 7T, despite inter-subject variations because of sex, age, BMI, and coil-placement differences. Furthermore, the performance is robust across multiple MRI operators or re-scans after one year. UPs are, therefore, suited to significantly simplify UHF cardiac imaging by removing the need for lengthy calibration prescans.