Tissue-Independent SNR Measurement for Supine Breast Coil Assessment

Motivation: Breast MRI typically is performed with a patient in the prone position. Imaging supine would dramatically improve patient comfort and possibly reduce setup and positioning times. Goal(s): Compare image quality in breast MRI between the supine and prone positions with specialized coils using signal-to-noise ratio. Approach: To account for tissue deformation between supine and prone positions, we compare “tissue-independent” relative SNR, which uses the body coil SNR as a reference, in the breast tissue between prone and supine. Results: In multiple patients, the supine position consistently showed an improvement in SNR over the prone position. Impact: Improvements in motion correction approaches and development of flexible coils may enable supine breast imaging, which is much more comfortable for the patient than prone imaging. Using a careful comparison, we demonstrate substantially higher SNR in supine imaging.