Hooman Hamedani1,
Stephen J. Kadlececk1, Biao Han1, Kiarash Emami1,
Yi Xin1, Masaru Ishii2, Milton Rossman3,
Rahim Rizi1
1Department
of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States; 2Otolarynology,
Johns Hopkins Medical Center, Baltimore, MD, United States; 3Pulmonary,
allergy and Critical Care Division, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia,
PA, United States
The use of 3He gas has enabled imaging of both structural and functional aspects of the lung. This work introduces a recently developed scheme for imaging the regional ventilation, partial pressure of oxygen (pAO2) and lung microstructure (ADC) in human lungs using a single protocol with a multi-breath regimen, achievable by use of a patient-driven gas delivery device. The introduced method utilizes the minimum possible amount of hyperpolarized gas while still achieving the highest signal-to-noise possible with the introduced multi-breath maneuver and improves the quality of spin-density maps from which the pAO2 measurements can be made, which in turn can help to produce a more accurate calculation of fractional ventilation from the pAO2 maps themselves.