Dstream headspine

The patient underwent a number of spinal and cerebral MRI scans, including four consecutive cerebral examinations within 64 days from March to May 2020. The brain MRI examinations were all conducted in a 1.5 Tesla whole-body scanner (Achieva®, Philips Healthcare, Amsterdam, Netherlands) using a dStream HeadSpine ® coil (Philips Healthcare, Amsterdam, Netherlands). The examination protocol included T2- and T1-weighted sequences, a fluid attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) sequence, a diffusion weighted sequence (DWI), a time-of-flight angiography (TOF), and contrast enhanced T1-weighted sequences. In addition, these examinations included a susceptibility weighted imaging (SWI) sequence (repetition time 52 ms; echo time 12 ms; flip-angle 20°; field of view 230 × 183 × 130 mm, matrix 260 × 203 × 104, scan time 1:45 min). The spine MR images shown were acquired in May 2020 on a 3 Tesla whole-body scanner (Skyra®, Siemens, Erlangen, Germany) and included sagittal T2- and T1-weighted imaging before and after contrast administration.

Local ethics committee approval was obtained and all participants provided informed written consent. Volunteers were recruited via advertisement within the University College London campus and were eligible if (i) they had no MRI contraindication, (ii) were not taking any long‐term medication (excluding the oral contraceptive pill), and (iii) had no documented history of previous liver or gastrointestinal disease. The final cohort consisted of eight healthy volunteers (six male, mean age (28 ± 2) years, mean weight (72 ± 12) kg). Imaging was performed using a 3T scanner (Ingenia, Philips Healthcare, Best, Netherlands) with a 16 channel body coil (SENSE XL Torso, Philips Healthcare, Best, Netherlands) used for abdominal imaging and a 15 channel head coil (dStream HeadSpine, Philips Healthcare, Best, Netherlands) used for brain imaging.