Low SAR (31)P (multi‐echo) spectroscopic imaging using an integrated whole‐body transmit coil at 7T

Phosphorus ((31)P) MRSI provides opportunities to monitor potential biomarkers. However, current applications of (31)P MRS are generally restricted to relatively small volumes as small coils are used. Conventional surface coils require high energy adiabatic RF pulses to achieve flip angle homogeneity, leading to high specific absorption rates (SARs), and occupy space within the MRI bore. A birdcage coil behind the bore cover can potentially reduce the SAR constraints massively by use of conventional amplitude modulated pulses without sacrificing patient space. Here, we demonstrate that the integrated (31)P birdcage coil setup with a high power RF amplifier at 7 T allows for low flip angle excitations with short repetition time (T (R)) for fast 3D chemical shift imaging (CSI) and 3D T (1)‐weighted CSI as well as high flip angle multi‐refocusing pulses, enabling multi‐echo CSI that can measure metabolite T (2), over a large field of view in the body. B (1) (+) calibration showed a variation of only 30% in maximum B (1) in four volunteers. High signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) MRSI was obtained in the gluteal muscle using two fast in vivo 3D spectroscopic imaging protocols, with low and high flip angles, and with multi‐echo MRSI without exceeding SAR levels. In addition, full liver MRSI was achieved within SAR constraints. The integrated (31)P body coil allowed for fast spectroscopic imaging and successful implementation of the multi‐echo method in the body at 7 T. Moreover, no additional enclosing hardware was needed for (31)P excitation, paving the way to include larger subjects and more space for receiver arrays. The increase in possible number of RF excitations per scan time, due to the improved B (1) (+) homogeneity and low SAR, allows SNR to be exchanged for spatial resolution in CSI and/or T (1) weighting by simply manipulating T (R) and/or flip angle to detect and quantify ratios from different molecular species.