Rafael Luis O'Halloran1, James H. Holmes1,2, Yu-Chien Wu3,4, Andrew L. Alexander1, Sean B. Fain1,4
1Medical Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA; 2Applied Science Laboratory, GE Healthcare, Waukesha, WI, USA; 3Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA; 4Radiology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA
A 3D undersampled stack-of-stars q-space MRI acquisition using hyperpolarized helium-3 was performed in asthmatic adults (n=10), healthy adults (n=4), and healthy children (n=3). Q-space data were fit to a Gaussian function providing maps of the mean structure size. The mean structure size in the adult subjects was 333 23 m, while the structure size in the children was 312 9 m agreeing with the known age dependence of lung structure size. The acquisition was also performed in a healthy volunteer at three inhalation volumes. Structure size was observed to increase with lung volume.