Optimized and accelerated ¹⁹ F-MRI of inhaled perfluoropropane to assess regional pulmonary ventilation

Purpose: To accelerate ¹⁹ F-MR imaging of inhaled perfluoropropane using compressed sensing methods, and to optimize critical scan acquisition parameters for assessment of lung ventilation properties.

Methods: Simulations were performed to determine optimal acquisition parameters for maximal perfluoropropane signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in human lungs for a spoiled gradient echo sequence. Optimized parameters were subsequently employed for ¹⁹ F-MRI of inhaled perfluoropropane in a cohort of 11 healthy participants using a 3.0 T scanner. The impact of 1.8×, 2.4×, and 3.0× undersampling ratios on ¹⁹ F-MRI acquisitions was evaluated, using both retrospective and prospective compressed sensing methods.

Results: 3D spoiled gradient echo ¹⁹ F-MR ventilation images were acquired at 1-cm isotropic resolution within a single breath hold. Mean SNR was 11.7 ± 4.1 for scans acquired within a single breath hold (duration = 18 s). Acquisition of ¹⁹ F-MRI scans at shorter scan durations (4.5 s) was also demonstrated as feasible. Application of both retrospective (n = 8) and prospective (n = 3) compressed sensing methods demonstrated that 1.8× acceleration had negligible impact on qualitative image appearance, with no statistically significant change in measured lung ventilated volume. Acceleration factors of 2.4× and 3.0× resulted in increasing differences between fully sampled and undersampled datasets.

Conclusion: This study demonstrates methods for determining optimal acquisition parameters for ¹⁹ F-MRI of inhaled perfluoropropane and shows significant reduction in scan acquisition times (and thus participant breath hold duration) by use of compressed sensing.