Abstract #1326

Sundaram T, Gee J, Burstein P, Avants B, Yushkevich P, Zhang H, Peterson B, Wyman B, Akeson P, Pettersson G, Casselbrant I

MR imaging of inhaled hyperpolarized helium has been shown to provide reproducible measures of lung structure. This work demonstrates that registration can be performed both to align individual longitudinal 3He MR images and to normalize this data from different individuals to a lung atlas. The former capability enables maps of longitudinal changes in ADC value to be automatically obtained, and the latter normalization makes possible regional or voxelwise comparisons of ADC behavior in different subject groups. These results indicate the feasibility of anatomically detailed detection and monitoring of lung structural changes in health and disease with hyperpolarized gas imaging.