Masaya Takahashi1,
Koji Sagiyama1, Priya Ravikumar2, Cuneyt Yilmaz2,
Yasuo Yamashita3, Yoshiharu Ohno4, Connie C.W. Hsia2
1Advanced
Imaging Research Center, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center,
Dallas, TX, United States; 2Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine,
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United States; 3Division
of Radiology, Department of Medical Technology, Kyushu University Hospital,
Fukuoka, Japan; 4Advanced Biomedical Imaging Research Center, Kobe
University Graduate School of Medicine, Kobe, Hyogo, Japan
Pulmonary MR imaging using ultra-short echo times (UTE-MRI) was introduced as a new tool for quantitative measure of tissue integrity in the lung. We previously demonstrated that T2* and % change in signal intensity (SI) measured with this method correlate closely with lung tissue density and can detect ventilatory heterogeneity in the lung parenchyma. Here we report the use of UTE-MRI to assess pulmonary structural and functional abnormalities in a rat model of obesity-associated diabetes mellitus.