Monitoring the dissolved xenon-129 signal in a central downstream location such as the left ventricle of the heart provides a convenient measure of the lung’s gas transport dynamics, and thereby of total lung function. To demonstrate the feasibility of this approach, we combined a rapid simultaneous gas-phase / dissolved-phase 1D-projection acquisition with regional gas-phase saturation to monitor the gas-transport dynamics of the lung as signal variations in the heart of a rat model of radiation-induced lung injury. Our measurements indicate that this method can identify the reductions in regional lung function associated with partial lung irradiation.
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