Abstract #2008

Measurement of Regional and Global Lung Ventilation Using Non-Rigid Image Registration

Kelvin Chow¹, Ben Esch², Mark Haykowsky³, Ian Paterson⁴, Richard Thompson¹

¹Biomedical Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; ²Cardiovascular Physiology and Rehabilitation Laboratory, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; ³Physical Therapy, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; ⁴Division of Cardiology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Non-rigid registration of serially acquired MRI lung images provides a direct method for quantifying lung ventilation with minimal user interaction. In-plane deformations are translated into local volume changes, which are combined with respiration rates to measure regional ventilation, and summed over the lungs to determine total lung ventilation. Simultaneous measurement of total ventilation over a large range of ventilation rates (3-35 liters/min) using gold standard spirometry correlated well with MRI rates (R²=0.88). Regional ventilation maps show significant differences (p<0.05) between ventilation in anterior (1915% volume increase) vs. posterior (3016%) lung regions, and a continuous chest-to-back gradient in all subjects.