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. 2010 May;31(5):1236-41.
doi: 10.1002/jmri.22137.

Pulmonary kinematics from tagged hyperpolarized helium-3 MRI

Nicholas J Tustison  1 , Suyash P Awate, Jing Cai, Talissa A Altes, G Wilson Miller, Eduard E de Lange, John P Mugler 3rd, James C Gee
Affiliations

Pulmonary kinematics from tagged hyperpolarized helium-3 MRI

Nicholas J Tustison et al. J Magn Reson Imaging. 2010 May.

Abstract

Purpose: To propose and test the feasibility of a novel method for quantifying 3D regional pulmonary kinematics from hyperpolarized helium-3 tagged MRI in human subjects using a tailored image processing pipeline and a recently developed nonrigid registration framework.

Materials and methods: Following image acquisition, inspiratory and expiratory tagged (3)He magnetic resonance (MR) images were preprocessed using various image filtering techniques to enhance the tag surfaces. Segmentation of the three orthogonal sets of tag planes in each lung produced distinct point-set representations of the tag surfaces. Using these labeled point-sets, deformation fields and corresponding strain maps were obtained via nonrigid point-set registration. Kinematic analysis was performed on three volunteers.

Results: Tag lines in inspiratory and expiratory images were coregistered producing a continuous 3D correspondence mapping. Average displacement and directional strains were calculated in three subjects in the inferior, mid, and superior portions of the right and left lungs. As expected, the predominant direction of displacements with expiration is from inferior to superior.

Conclusion: Kinematic quantitation of pulmonary motion using tagged (3)He MRI is feasible using the applied image preprocessing filtering techniques and nonrigid point-set registration. Potential benefits from regional pulmonary kinematic quantitation include the facilitation of diagnosis and local assessment of disease progression.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Mid-coronal tagged helium-3 images at (a) inspiration and (b) expiration from a normal human volunteer.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Image preprocessing pipeline illustrating the algorithmic workflow from the acquired tagged helium-3 image to the labeled point sets which are used for non-rigid registration.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Sample registration results for Subject 1. (a) Coronal view showing the misalignment of the tag lines at end-inspiration with the tag lines at end-expiration superimposed. The green and red lines denote the tag lines at end-expiration in the right and left lungs, respectively, whereas the grey lines correspond to end-inspiration. (b) After registration the tag lines are in correspondence.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Frontal views of mid-coronal slices of the displacement fields for (a) Subject 1 (normal), (b) Subject 2 (asthmatic), and (c) Subject 3 (advanced pulmonary fibrosis with right lung transplant). The color bar indicates the magnitude of the displacement in millimeters.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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