19F-MRI: Flow Measurement of Fluorinated Gases During High Frequency Oscillatory Ventilation

Janet Friedrich¹, Julien Rivoire¹, Maxim Terekhov¹, Laura Maria Schreiber¹

High frequency oscillatory ventilation (HFOV) is a protective ventilation method mainly used for patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). To explore gas flow mechanisms during HFOV 19F-MRI of fluorinated gases was performed at 1.5T. With a flow sensitive gradient-echo-sequence velocity profiles during HFOV could be determined and tracked over time with a temporal resolution of 10ms. The signal-to-noise ratio and hence the reliability of velocity information could be improved by skipping the phase encoding gradient. In summary, the present work demonstrates that flow measurement of fluorinated gases is feasible and can also be applied under HFOV.