Lungs Pathology Detection Using Hyperpolarized 129Xe

描述(由申请人提供)： 发展新型超极化129Xe核磁共振技术，在不使用放射性物质或电离辐射的情况下，非侵入性地评估全球和区域肺功能以及体内的生理。据推测，可以可靠地检测和利用氙气摄取和交换动力学来提供任何其他诊断模式无法获得的肺病学信息。在优化的形式下，这些新技术有望成为肺科医生武器库的有力补充，因为它们可能允许及早发现肺实质的病理变化，以及研究疾病进展和监测治疗。一旦这些技术被开发出来，它们将在兔的肺气肿疾病模型上进行测试，以评估它们在COPD早期诊断方面是否比现有方法具有实质性的优势。虽然建议的应用是检测肺气肿，但所研究的方法将有助于表征肺功能，并增加对肺病理的敏感性。这些目标将分三个阶段实现。首先，使用一系列以129Xe在肺实质中溶解的共振为中心的频率选择性射频脉冲，测定兔和狗的摄取和交换参数。获得的参数值被用于优化氙极化转移对比磁共振成像序列，该序列可以被敏化以绘制表面体积比或肺组织密度图。在第二步，将进一步改进这些方法，将肺泡和组织之间的气体交换与肺泡和红细胞之间的气体交换区分开来。最后，将通过检测和监测兔模型中肺气肿的发展来评估优化的核磁共振脉冲序列技术的性能。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The development of novel hyperpolarized 129Xe nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques is proposed to non-invasively assess global and regional lung function as well as physiology in-vivo, without the use of radioactive substances or ionizing radiation. It is hypothesized that xenon uptake and exchange dynamics can be reliably detected and exploited to provide pulmonological information that is unobtainable with any other diagnostic modality. In an optimized form these new techniques are expected to become a powerful addition to the arsenal of pulmunologists since they may permit the early detection of pathological changes in the lung parenchyma as well as the study of disease progression and the monitoring of treatment. Once the technologies have been developed they will be tested on an emphysema disease model in rabbits to evaluate whether they provide substantial advantages in the early diagnosis of COPD over existing methods. Although a suggested application is the detection of emphysematous lung the investigated methods will help characterize lung function and increase the sensitivity for lung pathology in general. These goals will be approached in three stages. First, using a series of frequency-selective RF pulses centered at the resonance for 129Xe dissolved in the lung parenchyma the uptake and exchange parameters in rabbits and dogs will be determined. The obtained parameter values are used to optimize xenon-polarization-transfer-contrast magnetic resonance imaging sequences, which can be sensitized to map the surface-to-volume ratio or the lung tissue density. In a second step, the methods will be further refined to distinguish gas exchange between alveoli and tissue from exchange between alveoli and red blood cells. Finally, the performance of the optimized NMR pulse sequence techniques will be evaluated by detecting and monitoring the development of emphysema in a rabbit model.