Imaging of a mixture of hyperpolarized 3He and 129Xe

R.H. ACOSTA; P. BLÜMLER; S. HAN; S. APPELT; F.W. HÄSING; J. SCHMIEDESKAMP; W. HEIL; H.W. SPIESS

MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING

Año: 2004 vol. 22 p. 1077 - 1083

0730-725X

With the use of hyperpolarized gases, a great number of experiments have been carried out in order to improve the diagnostics of thelung, both from a structural and a functional point of view. 3He is best suited for structural studies, whereas 129Xe gives more detailedinformation about the functionality of the lung because it enters the bloodstream. In this work, we propose the use of a gas mixture toperform consecutive analysis of lung structure and functionality upon the delivery of a single bolus of gas. We show images of a helium–xenon gas mixture in the presence of a small amount of liquid toluene in order to demonstrate how both nuclei can be detectedindependently, extracting the spectroscopic information provided by the 129Xe spectra and obtaining an image with high sensitivity for 3He.A second experiment performed on a dissected mouse lung was used to demonstrate how the mixture of gases can enhance sensitivity in thelarger airways of the lung.