OBJECT: The authors report on a new head coil into which the Leksell aluminum localization frame can be easily and securely mounted. Mechanically, the head coil interferes little with the patient. METHODS: The head coil, which is for magnetic resonance (MR) imaging, is a 12-element quadrature transmit-and-receive high-pass birdcage coil with a nominal operation frequency (63.86 MHz). The coil was built into a plastic housing. This new head coil minimizes patient motion and provides a 20% increase in signal/noise ratios compared with standard head coils. An MR image test phantom was mounted in the coil and this allowed quantification of image distortion due to inhomogeneities in the main magnetic field, nonlinearity in the gradient field, and paramagnetism of the aluminum headframe. There were no significant differences in geometric distortion between the new head coil and the standard coil. CONCLUSIONS: The new head coil has advantages for reducing patient movement artifacts and has a better signal/noise ratio with no reduction in geometric accuracy.
OBJECT: The authors report on a new head coil into which the Leksell aluminum localization frame can be easily and securely mounted. Mechanically, the head coil interferes little with the patient. METHODS: The head coil, which is for magnetic resonance (MR) imaging, is a 12-element quadrature transmit-and-receive high-pass birdcage coil with a nominal operation frequency (63.86 MHz). The coil was built into a plastic housing. This new head coil minimizes patient motion and provides a 20% increase in signal/noise ratios compared with standard head coils. An MR image test phantom was mounted in the coil and this allowed quantification of image distortion due to inhomogeneities in the main magnetic field, nonlinearity in the gradient field, and paramagnetism of the aluminum headframe. There were no significant differences in geometric distortion between the new head coil and the standard coil. CONCLUSIONS: The new head coil has advantages for reducing patient movement artifacts and has a better signal/noise ratio with no reduction in geometric accuracy.