Yulin V. Chang1, James D. Quirk1, Francesca Pennati2, Ramsey Hachem3, Andrea Aliverti2, Jason C. Woods1
1Radiology, Washington University, Saint Louis, MO, United States; 2Biomedical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy; 3Internal Medicine, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, United States
We present our preliminary results on quantification of pulmonary ventilation using proton magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the lung at different volumes. Images were acquired at 1.5 T field using volumetric interpolated breath-hold examination (VIBE). The image-intensity differences were computed after image registration as measures of tissue-density changes, which are compared with hyperpolarized 3He images. Our results indicate proton MRI is promising at detecting significant ventilation defects in the lung.