In vivo performance of a wearable coil vest for 3 T breast MRI (BraCoil)

Recently, we introduced the “BraCoil”, a wearable coil for prone and supine breast imaging designed to overcome several shortcomings in clinical breast MRI. Here, we present in vivo performance tests on 12 volunteers with different breast volumes ranging from 495 mL (bra size 70A) to 3020 mL (90D). SNR gain up to a factor of three over a commercial breast coil was found. Acceleration factors up to 6x4 can be used with reasonable g-factors. High-quality in vivo images with different contrasts are presented.