Detecting Pulmonary Capillary Blood Pulsations Using Hyperpolarized 129Xe CSSR

Kai Ruppert¹, Talissa A. Altes¹, Jaime F. Mata¹, Iulian C. Ruset², ³, F. William Hersman², ³, John P. Mugler, III¹

Chemical Shift Saturation Recovery (CSSR), is a method for monitoring the uptake of hyperpolarized xenon-129 (HXe) by the lung parenchyma through the acquisition of a free induction decay following a variable delay time after an RF saturation pulse. The purpose of our studies was to demonstrate that, by holding the delay time fixed, it is feasible to evaluate the pulsation of flowing blood in the pulmonary capillaries in real time. We found that rhythmic pulsations with a period of approximately 1s in both dissolved-phase peaks are detectable at residual volume and total lung capacity.