Joint Annual Meeting ISMRM-ESMRMB 2014 10-16 May 2014 Milan, Italy

SCIENTIFIC SESSION
Hyperpolarized Gas Imaging

 
Thursday 15 May 2014
Blue 1 & 2  10:30 - 12:30 Moderators: Yannick Crémillieux, Ph.D., Samuel Patz, Ph.D.

10:30 0770.   
Comparison of regional ventilation defect distribution between oxygen-enhanced and hyperpolarized He-3 MRI
Stanley J Kruger1, Scott K Nagle1,2, Robert V Cadman1, Kevin M Johnson1,2, Laura C Bell1, Andrew D Hahn1, and Sean B Fain1,2
1Medical Physics, University of Wisconsin - Madison, Madison, WI, United States, 2Radiology, University of Wisconsin - Madison, Madison, WI, United States

 
Oxygen Enhanced MRI with 3D radial ultrashort echo time (OE-MRI) is an emerging technique for the evaluation of lung ventilation with advantages over hyperpolarized noble gas MRI (HP-MRI) in terms of accessibility and cost effectiveness. Nonetheless, HP-MRI is an emerging reference standard for pulmonary MRI of ventilation. The purpose of this work is to compare the heterogeneity of ventilation as depicted regionally for the same subjects with HP-MRI and OE-MRI to evaluate regional distribution of ventilation defects using the respective techniques. The whole-lung coverage provided by 3D radial OE-MRI could be readily compared to HP-MRI as a reference standard.

 
10:42 0771.   
Introduction of global specific ventilation as a reference for specific ventilation derived by Fourier Decomposition MRI
Andreas Voskrebenzev1, Marcel Gutberlet1, Lena Becker1, Julius Renne1, Jan Hinrichs1, Christian Schönfeld1, Sajoscha Sorrentino1, Frank Wacker1, and Jens Vogel-Claussen1
1Radiology, Medical School Hannover, Hannover, Lower Saxony, Germany

 
Fourier Decomposition (FD) is a method to calculate ventilation-weighted images of the lung without the need of any contrast agent. These images can be used to determine the dimensionless specific ventilation (SV). We introduce the global SV as the ratio of breathing volume change to lung volume during mid-position of respiration. The presented correlation of global and FD SV could be utilized to normalize the SV maps in cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. Thereby, this study shows that the combination of MRI and real-time respiration detection is of relevance for the comparison of absolute SV values.

 
10:54 0772.   
Pulmonary Functional MRI to Phenotype COPD and Evaluate Treatment Efficacy: Intermediate Endpoints and Predictors of Efficacy when Conventional endpoints fail?
Sarah Svenningsen1,2, Gregory Paulin1,2, Miranda Kirby1,2, Nikhil Kanhere1,3, Roya Etemad-Rezai4, David G McCormack5, and Grace Parraga1,2
1Imaging Research Laboratories, Robarts Research Institute, London, Ontario, Canada, 2Department of Medical Biophysics, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada, 3Graduate Program in Biomedical Engineering, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada,4Department of Medical Imaging, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada, 5Department of Medicine, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada

 
In subjects with advanced COPD, we evaluated hyperpolarized 3He MRI measurements of emphysema and airways disease in a study of the 4-week treatment efficacy of a handheld airway clearance device for mobilizing mucous secretions. Whereas all subjects reported a modest improvement in ease of clearing mucous following therapy, 6/14 subjects showed improved 3He MRI ventilation (p=0.04), with concomitantly improved forced vital capacity and 6MWD, and this was not observed in imaging non-responders. In addition, imaging measurements of emphysema was a negative-predictor of response. Non-invasive imaging measurements of COPD can be used as intermediate endpoints and phenotypes in therapy trials.

 
11:06 0773.   Differentiating Injured and Normal Lungs by the Ratiometric Analysis of Hyperpolarized-13C-NMR Data
He N. Xu1,2, Hoora Shaghaghi1, Stephen Kadlececk1, Harrilla Profka1, Lin Z. Li1,2, and Rahim Rizi1
1Radiology Department, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States, 2Britton Chance Lab of Redox Imaging, Johnson Research Foundation, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States

 
A non-invasive method for assessing lung injury is needed. We aimed to identify an early metabolic predictor of lung inflammation using the hyperpolarized 13C-NMR technique. Rat lung injury was induced by bleomycin and studied by injecting hyperpolarized 13C-pyruvate to the perfused lung 7 and 21 days after the treatment. The larger rate constants of the LDH-catalyzed reaction quantified by the ratiometric analysis of the time course of lactate/pyruvate ratio indicate inflammation sped up both the forward and reverse reaction rates and altered the cellular redox state. Our results indicate that HP-13C-NMR data can be useful for probing lung disorders.

 
11:18 0774.   
Regional Mapping of Gas Uptake by Lung Tissue and Blood in Subjects with Asthma using Hyperpolarized Xenon-129 MRI
Kun Qing1, Kai Ruppert1,2, Tally A. Altes1, Yun Jiang3, Jaime F. Mata1, G. Wilson Miller1, Yang Yang1, Yun M. Shim1, Steven Guan1, Iulian C. Ruset4,5, F. William Hersman4,5, and John P. Mugler1
1University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, United States, 2Cincinnati Children's Hospital, Cincinnati, OH, United States, 3Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, United States, 4Xemed LLC, Durham, NH, United States, 5University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, United States

 
For this study, we used 3-D Xe-129 dissolved-phase imaging method to investigate functional changes in the lungs of 10 asthmatics, as compared to 12 healthy subjects. The relatively high RBC-to-tissue ratios, low tissue-to-gas ratios, and normal ADC values found in 7 asthmatics represent a unique combination that has not been seen in healthy or COPD subjects. These values may be associated with airway inflammation and remodeling of both the airways and vasculature. All ratios were low in two older asthmatics, indicating impaired gas exchange possibly due to emphysematous tissue destruction and thickening of alveolar walls, similar to COPD.

 
11:30 0775.   Dissolved Hyperpolarised 129Xe As A Probe Of Lung Function In Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis And Systemic Sclerosis
Neil James Stewart1, General Leung1, Graham Norquay1, Helen Marshall1, Juan Parra-Robles1, Andy Swift1, Jan Wolber1,2, Rolf Schulte3, Nehal Hussain4, Robin Condliffe4, Charlie Elliot4, Philip Murphy5, Moira Whyte4, David Kiely4, and Jim Michael Wild1
1Academic Radiology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, United Kingdom, 2GE Healthcare, Amersham, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom,3GE Global Research, Garching, Bavaria, Germany, 4Respiratory Medicine, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, United Kingdom,5GlaxoSmithKline, Southall, Greater London, United Kingdom

 
In this work, hyperpolarised 129Xe was assessed as a functional tool for the study of gas exchange in the human lungs. The Chemical Shift Saturation Recovery technique was utilised to quantify changes in lung microstructure and consequent degradation of lung function in subjects with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and systemic sclerosis, via non-invasive measurement of septal thickening and elevated pulmonary-capillary transit times. The results of this study correlated well with dynamic contrast enhanced MRI and hyperpolarised 3He diffusion MRI.

 
11:42 0776.   Using Hyperpolarized 129Xe MRI to Quantify Differences in Regional Ventilation in Older Versus Younger Asthmatics
Mu He1, Suryanarayanan Sivaram Kaushik1,2, Scott Haile Robertson1,3, Matthew S Freeman1,3, Rohan S Virgincar1,2, Holman Page McAdams4, Denise Beaver5, Monica Kraft5, and Bastiaan Driehuys1,2
1Center for In Vivo Microscopy, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, United States, 2Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States, 3Medical Physics Graduate Program, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States, 4Department of Radiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, United States, 5Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, United States

 
Asthma treatment is generally less effective for older patients. Yet, most published studies exclude subjects aged over 65 years-of-age to avoid expected confounding effects from other coexisting obstructive lung disorders. In this work, hyperpolarized 129Xe MRI was used to acquire ventilation images in younger and older asthmatics, as well as healthy controls matched for body mass, ethnicity, and age. To quantify differences between groups, test for short-term image reproducibility and evaluate bronchodilator response, we introduce an improved semi-automated cluster analysis method to calculate ventilation defect percentage (VDP).

 
11:54 0777.   Optimized Strategies for 19F MRI of Human Lungs and Comparison of UTE and Gradient Echo Imaging
Marcus J. Couch1,2, Iain K. Ball2, Tao Li2, Matthew S. Fox2, Alexei V. Ouriadov2, Birubi Biman3,4, and Mitchell S. Albert1,2
1Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, 2Thunder Bay Regional Research Institute, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, 3Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, 4Northern Ontario School of Medicine, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada

 
19F MRI of the lungs is a new pulmonary imaging modality that uses inhaled inert fluorinated gases as a signal source to acquire images of the lungs. The purpose of this study was to investigate optimized image acquisition strategies by optimizing and comparing UTE and gradient echo images in both a resolution phantom and healthy volunteers. Overall, UTE lung images had a higher SNR than gradient echo images, but also had poorer edge definition. On the other hand, gradient echo images had a lower SNR than UTE, but showed more edge detail and had a higher resolving power.

 
12:06 0778.   In Vivo Monitoring of Mucus Obstruction and Ventilation Malfunction in Mice by Combined 1H and Hyperpolarized 129Xe-gas Lung MRI
Le Zhang1, Rosa Tamara Branca2,3, Ting He2, and Camille Ehre4
1Curriculum in Applied Science and Engineering, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, United States, 2Physics and Astronomy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, United States, 3Biomedical Research Imaging Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, United States, 4Cystic Fibrosis/Pulmonary Research and Treatment Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, United States

 
A combination of ultrashort echo time proton imaging technique and hyperpolarized 129Xenon MRI was presented to detect mucus accumulation inside lungs of mice with cystic fibrosis symptoms. Histology was also performed to validate the findings.

 
12:18 0779.   Probing Lung Microstructure with Gradient Echo Plural Contrast Imaging
Alexander L Sukstanskii1, James D Quirk1, and Dmitriy A Yablonskiy1
1Radiology, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, United States

 
A new approach – Gradient Echo Plural Contrast Imaging (GEPCI) of lungs – is proposed for simultaneously extracting information about lung ventilation, alveolar parameters and blood vessel network structure from a single multi-gradient-echo experiment. Based on computer simulations of 3He atoms diffusion in the acinar airway tree in the presence of inhomogeneous magnetic field induced by the susceptibility differences between lung tissue (alveolar septa, blood vessels) and lung airspaces, we derive analytical expressions relating the time-dependent MR signal to the geometrical parameters of acinar airways and blood vessel network. Data obtained on 8 healthy volunteers are in good agreement with literature values.