Sarah Svenningsen1,
2, Danielle Starr1, Harvey Coxson3, Nigel
Paterson4, David G. McCormack4, Miranda Kirby1,
2, Grace Parraga1, 2
1Imaging
Research Laboratories, Robarts Research Institute, London, Ontario, Canada; 2Department
of Medical Biophysics, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario,
Canada; 3James Hogg Research Centre, University of British
Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; 4Division of
Respirology, Department of Medicine, The University of Western Ontario,
London, Ontario, Canada
In a group of asthmatic and healthy volunteers (HV), we quantitatively evaluated the relationship between hyperpolarized 3He MRI ventilation abnormalities and computed tomography (CT) airway measurements in a non-random region-of-interest (ROI) spatially identified by 3He MRI to contain ventilation defects. CT-derived regional WA% (p=.009) and LA (p=.01) and 3He MRI-derived whole lung VDP (p=.01) and regional VDP (p=.02) were significantly different between asthmatics and HV. Regional VDP was significantly correlated with WA% (r=.48, p=.02) and LA (r=-.51, p=.01). These results provide a better understanding of the underlying airway morphology related to heterogeneous ventilation abnormalities in asthma.