Quadrature RF Coil Arrays for MRI of the Human Breast

The long range objective is to develop a radio frequency (RF) antenna array for optimized magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the human breast. Recent MRI technique development has made possible sensitive detection of breast cancer and other abnormalities, but the major manufacturers of MRI systems have not provided high performance RF coils; the coils would help make these techniques practical for imaging the breast. We seek to develop a rf coil array. The rf coil array will provide at least a 40% improvement in signal to noise over available technology. The coils will also provide the potential for simultaneous acquisition from both breasts in the time usually required for single coil imaging. These goals will be accomplished by the application of a generalized theory of quadrature reception which is unique and proprietary technology. RF coil geometries provide the proper orientation to the spin system with elements arranged on a hemispheric form to be non-interacting and noise independent. The result would be an optimal coil array, and it would make possible shorter imaging times and/or higher resolution images on the 2,000 plus MRI systems for which the array could be readily adapted.