A first order Induced Current Density Imaging and Electrical Properties Tomography Method in MRI

Abstract

In this abstract we present a first-order Electrical Properties Tomography (foEPT) method to retrieve the Electrical Properties (EPs) of tissue and the radio-frequency electric field strength (Ez) within themid-plane of a birdcage coil from measured B1+ data. The EPs and Ez are essential to determine the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) and are important in many other medical application areas as well(e.g. hyperthermia treatment planning). As opposed to standard EPT methods based on Helmholtz’s equation1, our approach does not assume homogeneous media and first-order instead of second-orderdifferentiation operators act on B1+ as in a Helmholtz-based approach. Our foEPT method can therefore handle inhomogeneous structures and is less sensitive to noise.