Sampada Bhave¹, Sajan Goud Lingala², Scott Nagle³, John D Newell Jr⁴, and Mathews Jacob^1
1Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, United States, ²Electrical Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ³Radiology, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, WI, United States, ⁴Radiology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, United States

Three-dimensional dynamic MRI (3D-DMRI) is a promising method to analyze respiratory mechanics. However, current 3D DMRI implementations offer limited temporal, spatial resolution and volume coverage. In this work we demonstrate the feasibility of three compressed sensing reconstruction methods along with view-sharing method with clinical evaluation on 8 healthy subjects by expert radiologists. BCS scheme provides better performance than other schemes both qualitatively and quantitatively. The preliminary results on lung volume changes demonstrate the clinical utility of the BCS scheme.   

Wenwen Jiang¹, Frank Ong², Kevin M Johnson³, Scott K Nagle⁴, Thomas Hope⁵, Michael Lustig², and Peder E.Z Larson^5
1Bioengineering, UC Berkeley/UCSF, Berkeley, CA, United States, ²Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States, ³Medical Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Madison, WI, United States, ⁴Radiology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Madison, WI, United States, ⁵Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, UCSF, San francisco, CA, United States

Structural pulmonary imaging with MRI has many potential applications including lung nodule detection and interstitial lung disease assessments, but is limited by the challenges of short T2*, low proton density, and respiratory and cardiac motion. We propose a combination of an optimized 3D UTE acquisition with advanced reconstruction methods, including motion correction, parallel imaging, and compressed sensing, aiming to make MRI become a clinical option for pulmonary imaging.

Marcel Gutberlet^1,2, Till Kaireit^1,2, Andreas Voskrebenzev^1,2, Julia Freise³, Tobias Welte³, Frank Wacker^1,2, and Jens Vogel-Claussen^1,2
1Institute of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany, ²Plattform Imaging, German Centre for Lung Research (DZL), Hannover, Germany, ³Clinic of Pneumology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Quantification of regional lung ventilation is of high relevance for several lung diseases like chronic obstructive lung disease (COPD) or asthma. In this study real-time dynamic fluorinated gas MRI in free breathing for mapping of regional lung ventilation was applied in patients with COPD and healthy volunteers. A significant difference of washout kinetics between healthy volunteers and COPD patients was found. Dynamic fluorinated gas MRI highly correlated with lung function test which is used for COPD classification.  

Zackary I. Cleveland^1,2, Jinbang Guo^1,3, Teckla Akinyi^1,2, Hongjiang Wei⁴, S. Sivaram Kaushik⁵, Jason C. Woods^1,3, Chunlei Liu⁴, Vivian S. Lee⁶, and Luke Xie^6
11) Center for Pulmonary Imaging Research, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, United States, ²2) Department of Biomedical, Chemical, and Environmental Engineering, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, United States, ³3) Department of Physics, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, United States, ⁴Brain Imaging and Analysis Center, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, United States, ⁵Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, United States, ⁶6) Utah Center for Advanced Imaging Research, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, United States

Magnetic susceptibility differences at gas-tissue interfaces within the lungs have long been considered a significant obstacle to performing high-resolution pulmonary MRI because of the resulting rapid T₂^*relaxation. However, susceptibility differences in the lungs originate from regional differences in blood oxygenation and alveolar O₂ content. Thus, if these differences are mapped, they have the potential to provide fundamental information about regional lung function. Here we demonstrate that quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) of the lungs is possible in vivo using multi-echo radial MRI.  Additionally, we demonstrate that the contrast observed in the lungs via QSM is sensitive to O2 partial pressure.

Yoshiharu Ohno^1,2, Masao Yui³, Mitsue Miyazaki⁴, Yuji Kishida², Shinichiro Seki², Hisanobu Koyama², Katsusuke Kyotani⁵, Takeshi Yoshikawa^1,2, and Kazuro Sugimura^2
1Advanced Biomedical Imaging Research Center, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, Kobe, Japan, ²Radiology, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, Kobe, Japan, ³Toshiba Medical Systems Corporation, Otawara, Japan, ⁴Toshiba Medical Research Institute USA, Vernon Hills, IL, United States, ⁵Center for Radiology and Radiation Oncology, Kobe University Hospital, Kobe, Japan

Chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) imaging is suggested as a new technique for MR-based molecular imaging techniques in vivo and in vitro studies.  We hypothesized that newly developed CEST imaging, may have a similar potential for differentiating malignant from benign pulmonary nodules and masses, when compared with FDG-PET/CT.  The purpose of this study was to directly and prospectively compare the capability of CEST imaging targeted to amide groups (-NH) for differentiation of malignant from benign pulmonary lesions with FDG-PET/CT.

Khadija Sheikh¹, Fumin Guo¹, Alexei Ouriadov¹, Dante PI Capaldi¹, Sarah Svenningsen¹, Miranda Kirby², David G McCormack³, Harvey O Coxson², and Grace Parraga^1
1Robarts Research Institute, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada, ²UBC Centre for Heart Lung Innovation, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, ³Department of Medicine, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada

To accelerate clinical translation of pulmonary proton UTE MRI, the underlying structural determinants of UTE MR signal-intensity must be determined.  We regionally evaluated multi-volume UTE maps with direct comparison to thoracic CT in subjects with asthma. UTE MRI signal-intensity was related to CT radio-density, with a trend towards significance for pulmonary function tests, suggesting that changes in signal-intensity may reflect gas-trapping.  This is important, because UTE signal-intensity measurements may be used to identify regions of gas-trapping/ventilation abnormalities in severe asthma without the use of inhaled-gas contrast or ionizing radiation making this approach suitable for children where longitudinal monitoring may be required. 

Simon Veldhoen¹, Andreas Max Weng¹, Clemens Wirth¹, Andreas Steven Kunz¹, Janine Nicole Knapp¹, Daniel Stäb^1,2, Florian Segerer³, Helge Uwe Hebestreit³, Thorsten Alexander Bley¹, and Herbert Köstler^1
1Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University Hospital Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany, ²The Centre for Advanced Imaging, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, ³Department of Pediatrics, University Hospital Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany

Fourier Decomposition MRI provides functional lung imaging. Perfusion-weighted data carries information regarding the delay of maximal signal increase in the lung parenchyma during a cardiac cycle (pulmonary phase). Purpose of the study is to compare the pulmonary phase dispersion of cystic fibrosis (CF) patients and healthy controls. Functional maps were visually compared, phase values of the parenchyma were plotted on histograms and a peak-to-offset ratio was calculated. Ratios of CF patients were correlated with the forced expiratory volume (FEV₁). CF patients showed more inhomogeneous maps and a significantly lower ratio (15.9±17.5 vs. 38.7±27.9, p=0.005), which correlated with their FEV₁ (r_s=0.72;p=0.001).

Chenggong Yan¹, Jun Xu², Wei Xiong¹, Qi Wei², Yingjie Mei³, and Yikai Xu^1
1Department of Medical Imaing Center, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical Univeristy, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China, People's Republic of, ²Department of Hematology, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China, People's Republic of, ³Philips Healthcare, Guangzhou, China, People's Republic of

In this study, we evaluate the diffusion and perfusion characteristics of pulmonary invasive fungal infections (IFI), which were calculated using the intravoxel incoherent motion (IVIM) model. We found that a low perfusion fraction f might be a noninvasive imaging biomarker for unfavorable response.

Scott H. Robertson^1,2, Elianna A. Bier^1,2, Rohan S. Virgincar^1,3, and Bastiaan Driehuys^1,2,3,4
1Center for In Vivo Microscopy, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, United States, ²Medical Physics Graduate Program, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States, ³Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States, ⁴Department of Radiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, United States

Accurately characterizing the chemical shifts of ¹²⁹Xe in the lung, enables probing pulmonary gas exchange at the micron scale interface between the alveoli and capillary beds. Doing so requires decomposing the dissolved phase ¹²⁹Xe spectrum. Whereas previous work identified only two dissolved-phase ¹²⁹Xe resonances associated with blood and barrier tissues, we now employ improved non-linear fitting techniques to decompose complex FIDs into three resonances. This enables us to report updated ratios of ¹²⁹Xe uptake in blood and barrier resonances, many of which differ significantly between control and IPF groups. 

Kun Qing¹, Borna Mehrad¹, John P. Mugler, III¹, Kai Ruppert^1,2, Jaime F. Mata¹, Nicholas J. Tustison¹, Steven Guan¹, Y. Michael Shim¹, Iulian C. Ruset³, F. William Hersman^3,4, and Talissa A. Altes^1,5
1University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, United States, ²Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, United States, ³Xemed LLC, Durham, NH, United States, ⁴University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, United States, ⁵University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, United States

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a fatal disease leading to 40,000 deaths each year in the US. Current clinical tools are remarkably limited in their ability to discriminate between subsets of IPF patients. In this study, we demonstrated the ability of a recently developed imaging tool, hyperpolarized xenon-129 MRI, to detect pulmonary physiology highly relevant to pathology found in IPF with 3-D resolution. Xenon-129 MRI may represent a novel tool that can detect previously unrecognized subsets of patients with IPF relevant to treatment and prognosis of this disease.