Hyperpolarized 129Xe MRI Ventilation Texture Features to Characterize Long-haul COVID-19 Survivors

Persistent, long-term COVID-19 symptoms and pulmonary function abnormalities, beyond the acute infectious pulmonary disease phase, is now recognized in certain patients and referred to as long-haul or long COVID. We used hyperpolarized ¹²⁹Xe MRI ventilation defect percent (VDP) and texture analysis to evaluate and characterize second-order ¹²⁹Xe MRI ventilation texture features in a pilot study of participants with long-haul COVID-19. We observed statistically significant differences in ¹²⁹Xe MRI VDP and ventilation texture features between COVID-19 survivors and volunteers who were not infected. Second-order ¹²⁹Xe MRI ventilation texture features dichotomized long-haul COVID-19 and volunteers in the absence of qualitative VDP differences.