A numerical and experimental study of RF shimming in the presence of hip prostheses using adaptive SAR at 3 T.

PURPOSE: Parallel transmission techniques in MRI have the potential to improve the image quality near metal implants at 3 T. However, current testing of implants only evaluates the risk of radiofrequency (RF) heating in phantoms in circularly polarized mode. We investigate the influence of changing the transmission settings in a 2-channel body coil on the peak temperature near 2 CoCrMo hip prostheses, using adaptive specific absorption rate (SAR) as an estimate of RF heating.

METHODS: Adaptive SAR is a SAR averaging method that is optimized to correlate with thermal simulations and limit the temperature to 39°C near hip implants. The simulated peak temperature was compared when using whole-body SAR, SAR10g , and adaptive SAR as a constraint for the maximum allowed input power. Adaptive SAR was used as a fast estimate of temperature to evaluate the trade-off between good image quality and low heating near the hip implants. Electromagnetic simulations were validated by simulating and measuring B1 maps and electric fields in a phantom at 3 T.

RESULTS: Simulations and measurements showed excellent agreement. Limiting whole-body SAR to 2 W/kg and SAR10g to 10 W/kg resulted in temperatures up to 49.3°C and 40.7°C near the hip implants after 30 minutes of RF exposure, respectively. Predictions based on adaptive SAR limited the temperature to 39°C, and allowed to improve the B1 field distribution while preventing peak temperatures near the hip implants.

CONCLUSION: Significant RF heating can occur at 3 T near hip implants when parallel transmission is used. Adaptive SAR can be integrated in RF shimming algorithms to improve the uniformity and reduce heating.