Abstract #0862

Johnson G, Driehuys B, Cofer G, Hedlund L, Pollaro J, Boslego J

We present a method for imaging pulmonary gas exchange enabled by differentially imaging 129Xe that is taken up in lung tissue versus capillary blood. The 129Xe-blood image is sensitive to micron scale changes in the thickness of the blood gas barrier which will delay the appearance of the characteristic 211ppm blood resonance. We both validate and demonstrate the utility of the method by showing that 129Xe uptake in blood is impaired in rats with unilateral fibrosis. Blood/tissue separation was achieved by using a 1-point variant of the Dixon technique in combination with projection encoding.