Sarah Svenningsen1, 2, Andrew Wheatley1, Miranda Kirby1, 2, Adam Farag1, Alexei Ouriadov1, Giles Santyr1, 2, David G. McCormack3, Grace Parraga
1Imaging Research Laboratories, Robarts Research Institute, London, Ontario, Canada; 2Department of Medical Biophysics, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada; 3Department of Medicine, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada
The high cost and limited availability of helium-3 (3He) gas has restricted clinical translation of this structure-function pulmonary imaging method, necessitating a transition to xenon-129 (129Xe) gas for pulmonary imaging which provides distinct differences that must be explored. We compared 3He and 129Xe ADC anatomical differences from the anterior-to-posterior slices in five subjects with asthma. For 3He and 129Xe, the relationship between anatomical location and ADC was statistically significant. Although 129Xe atoms are heavier, have slower diffusion coefficients in air with the potential for less homogeneous mixing, anatomical ADC gradients are similar to 3He MRI which bodes well for translation.