Zero echo time (ZTE) mri for assessment of lung parenchyma density changes by native MRI

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In principle, quantification of the local ventilation is possible according to the quantification of local lung parenchyma density changes. Due to the lack of ionizing radiation and the possibility of dynamic imaging, MRI may play an important role especially for longitudinal monitoring of the lung function. However, with current MRI protocols, imaging of the low-density short T2* lung tissues is challenging. With the possibility of using ultrashort echo time techniques (UTE) on conventional clinical scanners, initial results have been made regarding functional lung imaging with different methods. The currently rather long switching times of the RF/coil-frontend currently is still limiting the minimal echo time (TE) possible. It has been shown that by replacing the entire RF/coil frontend, almost negligible RF/coil-frontend switching times can be achieved, when accepting a major modification of the system, which interferes with regulatory approval for clinical usage.It is the objective of this project to integrate a dedicated receive-only unit interfaced to the scanner hardware by a simple trigger line, which is provided already on the non-modified system of the vendor, and as such not interfering with regulatory aspects of the system, but enabling a coil switching time below 5 micro s.