Juan Parra-Robles1, Salma Ajraoui1, Martin Deppe1, Kevin Teh1, Steven R. Parnell1, Jim M. Wild1
1Academic Unit of Radiology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
In this work, we describe the construction of a simple branching-tree lung phantom made of commercially available polypropylene Y-connectors that can be easily reproduced in any laboratory. Preliminary experimental results obtained with a phantom consisting of five airway (Y-connectors) generations (inner diameter: 1.54 mm) using hyperpolarized 3He are reported, including dynamic ventilation imaging and diffusion measurements. The results obtained demonstrate that this phantom is a valid physical model that can be used to validate the predictions of theoretical and numerical simulations in hyperpolarized gas lung MRI and to assess the spatial resolution of the imaging methods down to 1 mm.