Yanping Sun1, Stephen Krinzman2, Terence Tan1, T Bishop2, A Sosa2, S Rajan2, A Reno1, Y-S Tzeng3, S Zhalehdoust-Sani3, Kenneth R. Lutchen3, J M. Madison2, Mitchel S. Albert1
1Radiology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA; 2Div of Pulmonary Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA; 3Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
Hyperpolarized (HP) 3He MRI has been used in the past to characterize the physiology of asthmatic lungs, however, we wanted to determine whether ventilatory defects detected with 3He MRI correlate with the presence and severity of asthma. Five pulmonologists who are blinded to patients information evaluated the images with a scoring system that included counting of the number of defects and scoring the degree of ventilation heterogeneity. The HP 3He MR ventilation image score results indicated that the amount of ventilation heterogeneity and the number of defects correlated well with the presence and severity of asthma.