Quantitative Assessment of Chronic Exposure to Cigarette Smoke in Mouse Lungs by Hyperpolarized Gas MRI

Yi Xin¹, Kiarash Emami¹, Stephen J. Kadlecek¹, Puttisarn Mongkolwisetwara¹, Nicholas N. Kuzma¹, Harilla Profka¹, Yinan Xu¹, Hooman Hamedani¹, Benjamin M. Pullinger¹, Rajat K. Ghosh¹, Jennia N. Rajaei¹, Stephen Pickup¹, Masaru Ishii², Rahim R. Rizi¹

We present measurements of lung microstructure using ³He Apparent Diffusion Coefficient (ADC) and Ventilation in smoked mice. After six months of smoke exposure, the smoke-exposed group has significantly larger ADC values, while the ventilation maps are visually and quantitatively unchanged. We conclude that this smoked mice model more closely resembles the disease model in human emphysematous rather than human chronic bronchitic disease.