Talissa A. Altes1, Craig H. Meyer2, Jaime H. Mata1, Deborah Froh3, Alix Paget-Brown3, Sean Fain4, Eduard E. de Lange1, Grady Wilson Miller1, Karen Mooney1, Gordon D. Cates5, Martyn C. Botfield6, Mac Johnson6, John P. Mugler1
1Radiology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, United States; 2Boimedical Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, United States; 3Pediatrics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, United States; 4Radiology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, United States; 5Physics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, United States; 6Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated, Cambridge, MA, United States
As a prelude to clinical studies of infants with lung disease, the purpose of this study was to develop an acquisition strategy and hyperpolarized helium-3 (HHe) gas-delivery methods to enable imaging of non-sedated infants. HHe MRI was performed in a single non-sedated, non-restrained, healthy infant, age 13 months, using a spiral-based acquisition and a simple HHe gas-delivery system. The short acquisition time of 0.12 s per slice enabled imaging of a moving infant with little motion artifact. Similar to prior results in healthy older children and young adults, the healthy infant had homogeneous ventilation on HHe MRI.