8.2.1 - Patient Positioning

At Stanford and the Palo Alto VA Medical Center, we use the standard Transmit/Receive extremity coil placed at isocenter for knee imaging*. The patient is placed supine in the MR scanner with the knee of interest placed with the joint line at the center of the coil. The foot is placed in a slight degree of external rotation (10 to 15 degrees) so that the anterior cruciate ligament is in the sagittal plane when imaging. Positioning sponges are used to minimize motion of the knee during imaging. Patient comfort is enhanced by placement of sponges to cushion the opposite leg from the coil. When using the standard extremity coil with large patients, the top of the coil does not need to be completely closed for the study to be performed. This allows imaging of larger patients with high quality scans without resorting to surface coils or the body coil. The knee phased array coil does not allow this option and must be completely closed when scanning.

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