Quantification of Pulmonary Perfusion: Comparison of DCE-MRI and SEEPAGE at 3.0 T

Andr Fischer¹, Christian Oliver Ritter¹, Dietbert Hahn¹, Herbert Kstler¹

SEEPAGE is a non-invasive non-contrast-enhanced technique to accurately quantify pulmonary perfusion in a single shot while requiring only short breathhold times. DCE-MRI is the gold-standard in quantitative lung MRI. However, it is invasive and requires longer breathhold times to sufficiently sample the passage of the contrast agent. No comparison of SEEPAGE to DCE-MRI has been performed yet. Therefore, this study directly compared quantified lung perfusion rates of four healthy volunteers obtained with SEEPAGE and DCE-MRI. Results demonstrate a good agreement of SEEPAGE perfusion values with DCE-MRI. Furthermore, this work reports the first successful application of SEEPAGE at 3.0 T.