Interleaved 2H and 31P MRSI acquisitions of the liver at 7T employing a double tuned transmit bore coil and receive body array

Motivation: 2H and 31P MRSI provide relevant biomarkers, yet suffer from long scan time, low sensitivity and hardware swaps. With a novel setup, hardware swaps are avoided, facilitating interleaved scanning of 31P and 2H metabolites. Goal(s): The goal of this study was to design the novel hardware and assess the feasibility of gaining SNR using an interleaved 31P and 2H MRSI acquisition. Approach: Lossless filters were developed to merge the 2H and 31P setups and were tested on a healthy volunteer. Results: Interleaved scanning is possible and increases SNR of 31P and 2H signals in the liver. Impact: Lossless RF filters enable interleaved 31P and 2H MRSI acquisitions employing a double tuned bore coil and body receive array. This results in substantially improved SNR of metabolite signals from both nuclei, obtained in less examination time.