부분 촬영 시 전신에 인가되는 RF 차단을 위한 방호복에 관한 연구

Pulpose : MRI examination gives radio frequency(RF) pulses to the whole body, even though it visualizes only a partial area in detail. This might have harmful effects on patients rise as the RFs are absorbed into the patients’ body causing heating and temperature rise. In this paper, we examined the effectiveness of RF shielding fibers and customized RF protective clothing which can block the RF from being absorbed into the patients’ body. Materials and Methods : Phantom experiments were performed using a cylindrical fluid phantom in order to investigate whether the RF shielding fibers can completely block the RF. Also, clinical experiments were performed based on the phantom tests using customized RF protective clothing. MRI scanning was performed on a 3.0T MRI scanner (Ingenia, Philips Healthcare, The Netherlands). Each of T1, T2 and T2 fat saturated images were acquired using a 16channel anterior coil. The degree of an aliasing artifact and the signal suppression were evaluated using a measurement program. The statistical significance of the parametric data was determined using a t test to verify if there was a significant difference between before and after the application of the RF shielding fibers and RF protective clothing. Results : In the phantom experiment, both of the aliasing artifacts and the signal suppression of the scanned area were decreased by 98.94% after applying the RF shielding fibers. This meant that the RF shielding fiber completely blocks the RF, so that it did not react with the human body. The result of phantom test was identical to the clinical experiment results. In clinical experiment, the degree of signal suppression and aliasing artifact were both decreased by 95.89% after applying the customized RF protective clothing. In conclusion, the results showed that the RF shielding fibers and customized RF protective clothing of this study directly improved the heating problem of MRI by completely blocking the RF which was harmful to the human body and frequently encountered in clinical environment. Conclusion : The RF protection clothing made with RF shielding fibers proposed in this study can prevent the interaction between the RF and the human body. This can reduce the risk of SAR being exceeded due to temperature rise within the human body. Therefore, it was proved that the RF shielding fiber proposed in this study is the best alternative to reduce the risks on human body caused by the RF applied to the patient’s whole body.