SAR Evaluation of Pregnant Woman Models in 64 MHz MRI Birdcage Coil

Author

Shamsi, S. ; Wu, D.G. ; Chen, J. ; Liu, R. ; Kainz, W.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Houston Univ., TX

fYear

2006

fDate

11-16 June 2006

Firstpage

225

Lastpage

228

Abstract

This study presents numerical SAR evaluation in pregnant woman models exposed to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) radio frequency (RF) coil at 64 MHz. Nine pregnant woman models, representing different stage of pregnancy, are used for this study. SAR values in and around fetuses at different pregnancy stages are calculated. The investigations show an SAR increase beginning at the fifth month of pregnancy and local fetus SAR values above the IEC limit of 10 W/kg for the first level controlled mode. Based on our results we recommend not to perform MRI procedures for pregnant women in the first level controlled mode. These results can be used towards developing safety standards for pregnant woman undergoing an MRI

Keywords

biological effects of fields; biomedical MRI; finite difference time-domain analysis; obstetrics; 64 MHz; FDTD simulations; IEC limit; birdcage coil; magnetic resonance imaging; pregnant woman model; safety standards; specific absorption rate; Animals; Biological system modeling; Coils; Finite difference methods; Magnetic resonance imaging; Pregnancy; Radio frequency; Resonant frequency; Safety; Time domain analysis; FDTD simulations; MRI RF coil; SAR; pregnant woman model;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Microwave Symposium Digest, 2006. IEEE MTT-S International

Conference_Location

San Francisco, CA

ISSN

0149-645X

Print_ISBN

0-7803-9541-7

Electronic_ISBN

0149-645X

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MWSYM.2006.249455

Filename

4014865