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Novel Slab-Selective MRI Coil for Maximal Diagnostic Effectiveness

Overview

NorthShore University HealthSystem Research Institute is seeking a company to license and/or co-develop a drastically superior Radio Frequency Coil, the critical component of all MRI scanners.  Current MRI coil technologies result in MRI scans that suffer from either low image quality/resolution or low image contrast.  This new coil technology developed by ENHRI scientists represents a much more sophisticated solution to this classic MRI design problem and offers the best of both worlds in image quality and sensitivity. 

Applications

This invention can be used in routine MRI scans at any field strength and in specific imaging methods that apply long RF pulses. The systems include vertical MRI, Open MRI and superconducting ultra high field MRI from GE, Siemens, Philips, Fonar, Bruker, Varian, Toshiba, and others. 

Advantages

  • Superior image quality and resolution compared to current technologies
  • Superior image contrast compared to current technologies
  • Superior imaging of deeper locations
  • Requires less RF power, allowing for better facilitation of new MRI procedures 

Description

In MRI, an ideal RF coil should have high sensitivity and high uniformity for delivering RF power and for detecting RF signals. With current technology, the high sensitivity and high homogeneity can not be achieved simultaneously by using a single RF coil, i.e., a volume coil provides high uniformity but low sensitivity; while a surface coil has high local sensitivity that is restricted to the surface of subjects but poor spatial uniformity. The low sensitivity requires increasing RF power well beyond FDA restrictions and also leads to signal detection problems. The poor homogeneity yields poor imaging quality, and will even completely fail some imaging procedures. Although the combination use of a volume coil for power transmission and a surface coil for signal detection can improve the signal to noise ratio of images, the anatomical locations are limited to those on the surface of subjects.  This invention is a novel design of RF coil that has the shape of volume coil but the volume length is extremely short.  The design is a single unit which can provide both high sensitivity and high uniformity simultaneously for delivering RF power and detecting RF signals. Full coverage of subjects can be achieved by arraying or repositioning the single unit. Many advantages come along with this invention such as that the limited size of the coil volume requires a very low RF power; images for deep locations will have same high signal to noise ratio as those on the surface; no combination of volume and surface coil is needed for imaging procedures and the design is suitable for low and high magnetic fields. Finally, new MRI procedures that require long RF pulses are readily to apply with this invention without worrying about violating SAR limit. 

Patent Status:  Patent Pending (US 11/619,258) 

About The Inventors

Huiming Zhang, MDDr. Huiming Zhang was a Research Assistant Professor for the Department of Radiology at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University and a Senior NMR Spectroscopist at the Center for MR Research, NorthShore University HealthSystem Research Institute.  She received her PhD in NMR Biophysics at the University of Louisville and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Virginia, Department of Chemistry.  Her research focuses on the paramagnetic enhancement in off-resonance rotating frame.

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