Oxygen-Enhanced MRI in Patients with Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension: Feasibility and Value

Daniel Maxien¹, Olaf Dietrich², Sven Thieme², Maximilian Reiser², Konstantin Nikolaou²

Oxygen-enhanced MRI of the lung has proved its feasibility in studies with healthy volunteers, but till now there is only limited experience in circumscribed patient cohorts. We wanted to determine the value and feasibility of oxygen-enhanced MRI in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension. Therefore we evaluated the sensitivity and specificity of oxygen-enhanced MRI versus ventilation and perfusion scintigraphy. Furthermore, we made a quantitative comparison of the relative signal enhancement in defect areas with the relative signal enhancement in the whole lung to determine which signal difference is needed for a reliable visual detection of diseased lung areas.