Anatomy-specific B0-Shimming Strategies for Robust Clinical Imaging

Inadequate B0-shimming regularly results in suboptimal clinical image quality for several imaging and spectroscopic techniques. Linear shimming is generally a standard commercial offering, and higher-order shimming hardware is also available; however, these tools can be highly operator-dependent. While sporadic recommendations are in the literature, in practice, shimming strategies are typically developed from trial-and-error or anecdotal advice. We propose that a need exists for characterization of how normal anatomy alters the applied B0-field and determination of the effective shim terms for particular regions of anatomy. By doing so, region-specific shimming strategies can be developed to improve day-to-day clinical MR image quality.