GE Healthcare MultiDrive RF Transmit - Manual

GE Healthcare
MultiDrive RF Transmit
Consistently Clear.
Personalized Mr signal uniforMity.
New technologies bring new challenges.
The leap in image quality from 1.5T to 3.0T is
unquestionable, yet as MR technology improves,
new challenges continue to present themselves. For
example, shading artifacts are more demanding at
3.0T than 1.5T, particularly with abdominal exams.
As the 3.0T radio frequency (RF) energy penetrates
the body, it is more or less effective in certain areas
depending on the tissue it excites. This can create a
variation in the MR signal and cause image shading.
Add a wider patient bore design to these 3.0T systems,
and you can further complicate this issue since there
is less space for the whole-body RF transmit coil.
While larger bore designs greatly improve the patient
experience, steps must be taken to precisely control the
RF energy across the FOV to avoid increasing image
shading artifacts.
Introducing MultiDrive RF Transmit.
To meet this challenge, we’ve developed MultiDrive RF
Transmit to tighten RF control and virtually eliminate
3.0T image shading in a wide bore system. MultiDrive
uses the four-port drive, whole-body RF transmit coil
design introduced with the Discovery* MR750w to help
keep the RF uniform across the FOV.
Here’s how it works. First, independent exciters are
used to generate the RF pulse waveform shape,
amplitude and phase. These RF pulses are sent to
independent RF amplifiers before being applied to the
four ports of the RF body coil. However, MultiDrive goes
one step further. The phase and amplitude of each RF
pulse is modified before being applied to the RF coil.
This allows MultiDrive to automatically compensate
and virtually eliminate RF-induced signal shading
introduced by different body shapes and sizes. This
levels out the RF signal through the anatomy so it’s
uniform across the patient.
1
2
3
1
2
3
“
We needed a solution that balances 3.0T
technology with our wide bore design to
generate clear, uniform MR images for every
patient type.
“
– MR MultiDrive engineer
MultiDrive ensures the RF and amplitude of each pulse
are adapted for the anatomy of interest.
MultiDrive’s RF modification produces uniform MR
signal during reception.
MultiDrive automatically compensates and virtually
eliminates B1-induced signal shading across different
body shapes and sizes. The result is consistently clear
and uniform images.