Kai Ruppert1, James D. Quirk2, John P. Mugler III1, Talissa A. Altes1, Chengbo Wang1, G. Wilson Miller1, Iulian C. Ruset3, 4, Jaime F. Mata1, F. William Hersman, 34, Dmitriy A. Yablonskiy2
1University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, United States; 2Washington University, St. Louis, MO, United States; 3Xemed LLC, Durham, NH, United States; 4University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, United States
The recently described helium-3 (He3) lung-morphometry technique, which is based on in-vivo MR measurements of the diffusivity of hyperpolarized He3 gas in the lung, provides information on parameters commonly used by lung physiologists to characterize lung morphometry. However, due to the high cost and limited supply of He3, lung morphometry with hyperpolarized xenon-129 (Xe129) might become an attractive alternative for widespread application. In this work we demonstrate the feasibility of Xe129 lung morphometry and present results that indicate a good agreement between the findings with He3, Xe129 and histology.
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