Ultrashort Echo Time MRI of Lung Pathology in Humans

Scott K. Nagle¹, ², Jeffrey S. Nackos¹, Mark L. Schiebler¹, Christopher J. Francois¹, Laura C. Bell², Sean B. Fain, ¹², Kevin M. Johnson²

Ultrashort echo time (UTE) techniques have been used successfully to image very short T2* tissues in the musculoskeletal system and more recently in animal lungs. In this work we demonstrate the feasibility of using 3D radial UTE MRI with an echo time of 80μs to image the lungs of sick patients with isotropic 1.25mm spatial resolution and full-chest coverage. The method is implemented on commercially available hardware, requires no breath-holds and is very robust to motion. The visualization of several different types of lung pathology were evaluated and compared to conventional echo time images acquired simultaneously using a dual-echo approach.