Estimation of pulmonary hypertension by measurement of flow profile of pulmonary artery with CineMRI

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We measured pulmonary blood flow with phase contrast MRI for 20 volunteers and evaluated precision and reproducible of two slice positions, that is, perpendicular to pulmonary trunck and not, We detected a method to determine the slice which was perpendicular to a pulmonary artery, and reported that precision and reproducibility is higher with perpendicular slicesBased on this preliminary study, we examined whether pulmonary artery blood flow and other data were useful in an evaluation of the pulmonary hypertension. The subjects were ten patients with pulmonary fibrosis (they were thought that pulmonary arterial pressure was elevated) and ten healthy people. We measured pulmonary artery blood flow and calculated an index of some pulmonary hypertension; acceleration time (AT), acceleration volumes (AV), ratios M to AV (M: maximal change in flow rate during ejection), distensibility (Dis), average flow (Aveflo) and compared healty persons and the patient with pulmonary fibrosis. Respiratory function test was performed to the patients and evaluated the correlation with the indices. Almost all indices were significantly different between patients and volunteers. ROC analysis showed high capability of indices to discriminate patients from healthy volunteers. These results show that phase contrast MRI is a useful technique to evaluate elevation of the pulmonary arterial pressure. Compared indices with respiratory function test results, Dis, Aveflo showed a good correlation with severity of the pulmonary fibrosis. This suggests that these indexes reflected the distal pulmonary change, i. e. fibrosis, better than pulmonary arterial pressure. Additional investigations are necessary to confirm these results