Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is a non-invasive imaging modality with excellent soft tissue contrast and sensitivity to tissue temperature. MRI use is growing in Canada with expectation that this is expected to continue in the medium term, with more wide adoption of MRI and in particular a renewed focus on MR systems which deviate from the most commonly used 1.5T field strength system. By implementing systems which do not use as strong magnets and instead operate
Generally, as the field strength of an MR system decreases, the signal received when imaging also decreases, which makes it difficult to implement some applications which are standard at higher field. One such application is temperature mapping on a these \u3c1T \u3esystems, which can be used to monitor thermal therapies interventionally.
This thesis addresses the potentials for implementing temperature mapping at 0.5T, both in the creation of a tissue mimicking phantom which can be used to compare temperature mapping methods and implementing temperature maps both in vivo and in the custom phantom. As well, motivated by the sensitivity that thermal mapping has to external disturbances, the challenges that these accessible MR systems face when being in non-specialized environments is addressed, as this can potentially limit the efficacy of temperature mapping.
This work ultimately demonstrates the acceptable capabilities of a 0.5T system to map temperatures with an adequate temporal resolution, along with presenting practical solutions to operating a system in non-traditional locations
