Lung imaging with single-breath-hold 3D-UTE MRI allows for lung function analyses such as fractional ventilation (FV). Despite being a promising technique for unenhanced functional imaging, its limited interindividual comparability due to variable breathing depths has been a major drawback. Referencing the voxelwise FV to the mean FV (entire lung) provides the ventilation rate, which can be used for inter-/intraindividual comparison. We demonstrate that the distribution width of the ventilation rate strongly correlates to the ventilation inhomogeneity in patients with cystic fibrosis as measured by the lung clearance index, which makes it a promising parameter for analysis of lung ventilation.
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