Kai Ruppert1,
Talissa A. Altes1, Jaime F. Mata1, Iulian C. Ruset2,
3, F. William Hersman2, 3, John P. Mugler, III1
1University
of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, United States; 2Xemed, LLC,
Durham, NH, United States; 3University of New Hampshire, Durham,
NH, United States
Chemical Shift Saturation Recovery (CSSR), is a method for monitoring the uptake of hyperpolarized xenon-129 (HXe) by the lung parenchyma through the acquisition of a free induction decay following a variable delay time after an RF saturation pulse. The purpose of our studies was to demonstrate that, by holding the delay time fixed, it is feasible to evaluate the pulsation of flowing blood in the pulmonary capillaries in real time. We found that rhythmic pulsations with a period of approximately 1s in both dissolved-phase peaks are detectable at residual volume and total lung capacity.