Septal wall thickness measurements using hyperpolarized xenon-129 MRI are sensitive to inflammatory or fibrotic pathologies but currently require multi-second breath-holds. We investigated the feasibility of sampling the recovery of the xenon dissolved-phase magnetization in the lung parenchyma in real time using a rapid 1D acquisition technique combined with periodic saturation of the xenon dissolved-phase magnetization, allowing us to extract the septal wall thickness during short breath holds or even in free-breathing rabbits. Our measurements indicate that the correlation between the derived septal wall thickness and the respiratory cycle are low enough to obtain consistent wall-thickness measurements in free-breathing, non-cooperative subjects.
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