The Pulmonary Blood Volume Varies Throughout the Cardiac Cycle in Healthy Subjects a Novel Method for Quantification by MRI

Martin Ugander¹, Erik Jense¹, Hakan Arheden¹

The pulmonary blood volume varies during the cardiac cycle, but measuring this variation has been either cumbersome or of limited accuracy. This study shows that it is feasible to use MRI flow measurements to quantify the change in pulmonary blood volume during the cardiac cycle. The pulmonary blood volume in healthy volunteers increases on average just under 50 ml during systole and this was approximately 45% of the stroke volume. Further studies are needed to assess the utility of the pulmonary blood volume variation as a measure for identifying cardiac and/or pulmonary vascular disease.