Hoora Shaghaghi1,
Hooman Hamedani1, Stephen J. Kadlececk1, Kiarash Emami1,
Yi Xin1, Puttisarn Mongkolwisetwara1, Masaru Ishii2,
Milton Rossman3, Rahim Rizi1
1Department
of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States; 2Otolarynology,
Johns Hopkins Medical Center, Baltimore, MD, United States; 3Pulmonary,
allergy and Critical Care Division, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia,
PA, United States
Gravitational effects were detected in the dependent regions of lung by hyperpolarized 3He pAO2-imaging. In this abstract, a method is presented to estimate a global measure of oxygen uptake and gravitational gradients from two separate 3He pAO2-acquisitions for 22 human subjects. The evaluated oxygen uptakes were in the range of 1-2.5 Torr/s, while smoker and COPD subjects showed lower values. The gravitational gradients averaged to 1 Torr/cm but were less evident for nonsmokers and COPD subjects. The resulted global gradients showed significant correlations with acquired pulmonary function tests for all subjects.