Abstract #0011

Ultra-Short Echo Time (UTE) MR Imaging of the Lung: Comparison Between Normal and Emphysematous Mice

Masaya Takahashi¹, Osamu Togao¹, Makoto Obara², Marc van Cauteren², Yoshiharu Ohno³, Craig Malloy¹, Makoto Kuro-o⁴, Ivan Dimitrov^1,5

¹Advanced Imaging Research Center, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA; ²Philips Electronics Japan, Tokyo, Japan; ³Radiology, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, Hyogo, Japan; ⁴Pathology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA; ⁵Philips Medical Systems, Cleveland, OH, USA

The recent development of techniques has made possible detailed, non-invasive imaging of pulmonary parenchyma. The utility of ultra-short TE (UTE) imaging in conjunction with projection acquisition of the free inducting decay helps to acquire the MR signal from the lung parenchyma. It allows us to reduce TE up to less than 100 sec to minimize signal decay caused by short T2 relaxation time, and brings high SNR rather than a conventional FFT short echo image sequence. Here we report our measure of short T2 relaxation time of the lung in the wild-type and emphysematous mice using three-dimensional UTE imaging.