Abstract #1494

in vivo Assessment of Fatty Diabetic Lung by Ultra-Short TE (UTE) MRI in Rats

Masaya Takahashi¹, Koji Sagiyama¹, Priya Ravikumar², Cuneyt Yilmaz², Yasuo Yamashita³, Yoshiharu Ohno⁴, Connie C.W. Hsia²

¹Advanced Imaging Research Center, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United States; ²Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United States; ³Division of Radiology, Department of Medical Technology, Kyushu University Hospital, Fukuoka, Japan; ⁴Advanced Biomedical Imaging Research Center, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, Kobe, Hyogo, Japan

Pulmonary MR imaging using ultra-short echo times (UTE-MRI) was introduced as a new tool for quantitative measure of tissue integrity in the lung. We previously demonstrated that T2* and % change in signal intensity (SI) measured with this method correlate closely with lung tissue density and can detect ventilatory heterogeneity in the lung parenchyma. Here we report the use of UTE-MRI to assess pulmonary structural and functional abnormalities in a rat model of obesity-associated diabetes mellitus.