Diffusion-weighted hyperpolarized 129Xe MRI is a validated measure of lung microstructure and can assess changes in alveolar dimensions. These images are commonly acquired via 2D gradient recalled echo (GRE), but 129Xe GRE images suffer from coarse resolution in the slice dimension and breath-hold durations (≤16 s) that may be difficult for pediatric and severely ill subjects. To overcome these limitations, we implemented 2D- and 3D-spiral (FLORET, Fermat looped, orthogonally encoded trajectories) sequences for 129Xe diffusion imaging. These sequences enable either rapid acquisition or high-resolution, isotropic lung coverage and display image quality and ADC accuracy comparable to that of conventional 2D-GRE.
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