PURPOSE: To reduce acquisition time and improve image quality and robustness of ventilation assessment in a single breath-hold using (1) H-guided reconstruction of fluorinated gas ((19) F) MRI. METHODS: Reconstructions constraining total variation in the image domain, L1 norm in the wavelet domain, and directional total variation between (19) F and (1) H images were compared in order to accelerate (19) F ventilation imaging using retrospectively undersampled data from a healthy volunteer. Using the optimal constrained reconstruction in 8 patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (16-seconds breath-hold), ventilation maps of various acceleration factors (2-fold to 13-fold) were compared with maps of the full data set using the Dice coefficient, difference in volume defect percentage and overlap percentage, as well as hyperpolarized (129) Xe gas MRI. RESULTS: The reconstruction constraining total variation and directional total variation simultaneously performed best in the healthy volunteer (RMS error = 0.07, structural similarity index = 0.77) for a measurement time of 2 seconds. Using the same reconstruction in the patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the Dice coefficient of defect volumes was 0.86 +/- 0.05, the mean difference in volume defect percentage was -1.0 +/- 1.7 percentage points, and the overlap percentage was 87% +/- 2% for a measurement time of 6 seconds. Between volume defect percentage of (19) F and (129) Xe, a linear correlation (r = 0.75; P = .03) was found, with (19) F volume defect percentage being significantly higher (mean difference = 11%; P = .04). CONCLUSION: (1) H-guided reconstruction of pulmonary (19) F gas MRI enables reduction of acquisition time while maintaining image quality and robustness of functional parameters.
- Obert, A. J.
- Gutberlet, M.
- Kern, A. L.
- Kaireit, T. F.
- Grimm, R.
- Wacker, F.
- Vogel-Claussen, J.
Keywords
- 19f
- 1H-guided reconstruction
- perfluoropropane
- pulmonary MRI
- ventilation
