Comparison of Lung T2* Measurements at 1.5T and 3.0T with Ultrashort Echo Time (UTE) Sequence

Jiangsheng Yu¹, Yiqun Xue¹, Hee Kwon Song¹

Accurate assessments of lung T2* may be important as it has the potential to detect structural and functional changes caused by lung diseases such as emphysema, chronic bronchitis and fibrosis. While measurements have been carried out in both animals and humans at 1.5T, studies on human lung at 3T have not yet been reported. In this work, we compare T2* values in normal human lungs at 1.5T and 3.0T using an ultrashort echo time (UTE) pulse sequence. Results show the average lung T2* of 0.72 (0.17) ms at 3.0T is considerably shorter than 2.2 (0.43) ms at 1.5T.