HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text Free Full Text (PDF) Free All Versions of this Article: 105/4/1291    most recent 90375.2008v1 Submit a response Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Jacob, R. E. Articles by Timchalk, C. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Jacob, R. E. Articles by Timchalk, C.

3D ³He diffusion MRI as a local in vivo morphometric tool to evaluate emphysematous rat lungs

¹Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington; and ²University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah

Submitted 7 March 2008 ; accepted in final form 14 August 2008

In this work, we investigate ³He magnetic resonance imaging as a noninvasive morphometric tool to assess emphysematous disease state on a local level. Emphysema was induced intratracheally in rats with 25 U/100 g body wt of porcine pancreatic elastase dissolved in 200 µl saline. Rats were then paired with saline-dosed controls. Nine three-dimensional (3D) ³He diffusion-weighted images were acquired at 1, 2, or 3 wk postdose, after which the lungs were harvested and prepared for histological analysis. Recently introduced indexes sensitive to the heterogeneity of the air space size distribution were calculated. These indexes, D₁ and D₂, were derived from the moments of the mean equivalent airway diameters. Averaged over the entire lung, it is shown that the average ³He diffusivity (D_ave) correlates well with histology (R = 0.85, P < 0.0001). By matching small (0.046 cm²) regions in ³He images with corresponding regions in histological slices, D_ave correlates significantly with both D₁ and D₂ (R = 0.88 and R = 0.90, respectively, with P < 0.0001). It is concluded that ³He MRI is a viable noninvasive morphometric tool for localized in vivo emphysema assessment.

hyperpolarized gas; elastase; lung histology; diffusion anisotropy

This article has been cited by other articles:

				K. Emami, M. Stephen, S. Kadlecek, R. V. Cadman, M. Ishii, and R. R. Rizi Quantitative Assessment of Lung Using Hyperpolarized Magnetic Resonance Imaging Proceedings of the ATS, August 15, 2009; 6(5): 431 - 438. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]