Abstract #1316

Yablonskiy D, Conradi M, Bretthorst G, Chang Y, Sukstanskii A

In vivo lung morphometry can be evaluated based on measurement of anisotropic diffusion of 3He gas in acinar lung airways. However, for this method to become a robust tool for clinical and research applications, the accuracy of this method has to be analyzed. Herein we present a theoretical analysis of estimated experimental errors inherent to this approach. We derive expressions representing a dependence of the errors on experimental conditions and diffusion pulse sequence b-values. We demonstrate that accurate results can be achieved for a rather broad range of b-values, well compatible with the capabilities of clinical MRI scanners.